Confessions of Fangirl

Unfortunately while we were out last night I slipped and twisted the shit out of my foot/ankle. A spot on the top of my foot is swollen up like an egg and then there’s a few other places that are swollen and weird. The pain has been pretty bad thus far and I’ve not been able to walk. I’m supposed to fly home on Sunday and I’m a little concerned about the traveling, going back to work, and getting the dog. My legs were already tired and sore from all the walking and 1000 year-old-steps climbing we’d spent the last few days doing, but I’ve been have to hop around on my right leg because I can’t put any weight on my left and it’s been interesting endeavor. We left Ireland to go back to England today. Thank goodness the line was so accomadating. They got me a wheelchair and helped cart me between the buses and the Ferry and all that sort of stuff.

My folks have had to carry my luggage because I can’t. I keep hoping it start feeling improved soon. I’ve wrapped it up in an ace bandage and I’ve been taking ibuprofen and acetaminophen to help the pain and the swelling. Granted, I should be careful because even if it starts feeling better due to pain pills, that doesn’t mean it actually is better. If it isn’t better even though it feels better, I could end up doing more damage. I just can’t believe I’ve hurt myself so badly that almost a full day later, it still hurts this much and is so unable to bear weight. That just seems crazy. I knew when I did it, I was in trouble. I was trying to pretend like I hadn’t really hurt myself, but I knew I had.

I say that as if I’m not already trying to write every day, keep up with my reading, apply to grad school, and learn sign language as well as working a full time job. I also occasionally like to sleep. I’ve been taking a lot of naps on this trip. I find sleeping is a great way to pass the time on trips when you’re not the driver. Mom likes to talk. She got aggravated when I didn’t say anything to her counting down the kilometers to Dublin. Like, what am I supposed to say to that after a certain point. I didn’t even think she was talking to me. She’s constantly talking to herself and then when I ask about it she says she’s just talking to herself. Like, how am I supposed to tell the difference between one inane, random statement and one where you want a response?

I love my family but traveling is just difficult. I love my mother, but it’s so much harder to deal with her neurosis when we’re dealing with the public too. And my dad gets aggravated with her and wants me to fix it, as if there is anything I can do about the I situation. Okay sometimes there is, but it’s EXHAUSTING because it feels like it’s constant. The whole thing is ridiculous.

I will at some point get to write about how amazing the stuff I’ve seen is and how much fun I’m having when I’m not sitting on the bus with my nosy, bored, inquisitive mother. But for now I have to get a shower. I need to go to bed soon too—my folks are already in bed with the lights out, but since I napped a ton on the bus today, I’m not sure how well I'll sleep tonight or how quickly I’ll be able to get to sleep. I think tonight is going to be a good night to shave my legs.

I only need a few hundred words to meet my goal for the much, which is great! I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it with all the things that have gone on in September (tons of stuff at work, crazy busy desk times, DragonCon, this trip to England and Ireland, Jay’s visit, etcetera). Granted, I still have to write a few hundred more words so maybe I shouldn’t call it win just yet!

Even if I didn’t make my goal this month though, I’d still say it was worth sacrificing part of my writing goal for this trip. Even though we haven’t done a whole lot so far, seeing one of my aunts and one of my uncles and two of my cousins was amazing. I hadn’t visited here in five years. The last time I was here was for my grandfather’s funeral and the time before that was when my grandmother died. Both of those trips were in 2013 and that was a difficult year. It was a year of major change for me and a lot of the change was for the better, but it was still a really difficult year. To be visiting now, when things are good and I’m in a place where I mostly feel good about my life is such a wonderful feeling.

Either way, not seeing family you like (as well as love) for five years is not my favorite. It’s hard with everyone spread out everywhere. I think about my sister sometimes too. She has been to see Mark’s family and while his is closer, my sister hasn’t seen any of my dad’s family in years, maybe a couple of decades. I’m trying to remember the last time she went and I simply can’t say when that was. I honestly think the last time she went, I was a freshman in high school.

I feel like most of the trips have been just me and dad but there was one trip I didn’t go on that my sister did when I was in the 8th grade and there have been two or three trips my mom came on. I say “most” were just me and dad like there have been a ton of them, but there have been a handful throughout the years. There was one that the whole family did when I was between 6th and 7th grade. There were two where it was me and Chelsea who went with dad, maybe three? It was mom, dad, and myself for one trip and this trip. Then it was just me and dad for the first trip I remember taking in fourth grade, another one that I can’t quite remember when that was, one when I was a sophomore in college, one the first year after I graduated college, and then the two in 2013. That’s if I’m remembering all of them (beyond the ones we took when I was very small).

I’ve gotten to travel a good bit. I am thankful every day for the adventures I’ve gotten to go on because my dad was and still is a traveler.

But tomorrow we’re headed to Ireland which I have never really gotten to tour before. I spent four hours in the Dublin airport on one of the adventures, but that doesn’t count. I didn’t get to see anything other than the airport and what was right outside of the windows. I have never been to an airport with such incredibly friendly staff before though. That airport, by far, had the kindest, most patient airport employees I’ve encountered. Even the security and immigration type folks were amazing. I’m hopeful that the trip I’m about to make will just kind of build on that idea of Ireland for me for the most part (I know there are assholes in any group of people).

On an unrelated note, I’ve been rewatching Legends of Tomorrow. Well, initially watched the final episodes of season one since I skipped them the first go ‘round. The show was just such a struggle for me the first season. But now that I love it as much as I do—and I really do love it—I wanted to check out the stuff I’d missed. I thought I’d just skipped the end of the first season, but I also (apparently) hadn’t seen the first couple of episodes of the second season either. It was only when I started season two thinking I’d do a rewatch of it (and maybe season three as well if I can fit it in) for shits and giggles since I just finished re-watching Constantine that I realized that I’d never seen the first couple of episodes. I didn’t know how Nate joined the team, nor did I know how he got his superpowers. I mean, I’m sure that I saw the “previously on” but knowing me, I didn’t really pay attention and the information didn’t get stored.

Anyway, it was fun to watch those first couple of episodes and watch the team struggle to be a team. They’re so much more solid now. I’m going to miss Amaya and I really wish Kid Flash was going to stay, but I know the actor decided that he had other things he really wanted to pursue and I’m excited to see what he comes out with next.

But we all know it’s John Constantine I’m obsessed with.

I have so many things I need to do. Finish Librarians from like a year ago, catch up on the last five episodes of Wynonna Earp (it’s more like four, but still), the last four or five episodes of Killjoys, and probably a handful of other things too. I’m sure I’ll get there. I love Wynonna Earp and Killjoys. I’m going to be at the house by myself with the dog for four weeks or so which means I’ll have ample time to hog the TV and have on whatever I want. Granted the first two weeks won’t be much as far as doing anything. I’m going straight back to work after the trip and I’m supposed to work 11 days in a row. I have done stuff like this before, but I don’t think I’ve done it when I’m also jet lagged so I’m curious to see how this goes.

Not that I need to be thinking about that right now.

The problem with loving your job is that you end up thinking about it when you’d be ignoring the existence of a job you hate.

But oh, the point I wanted to mention was that after all that time I spent thinking that they were planning on bringing in John Constantine for Legends at the start of season three, I’m wondering if it actually went back further than that. Maybe it wasn’t a fully formed idea yet, but they brought John onto Arrow to put Sarah’s soul back in her body after she was brought back from the Lazareth Pit or whatever it’s called. They could have written that episode any way they wanted to and they could have brought John Constantine on any way they wanted to, but they very specifically wrote the story so that when they brought Sarah back (ostensibly to have her alive and available to do Legends of Tomorrow) it was John Constantine who fixed up her soul. They wrote Constantine into Oliver’s past so that they could call on Constantine rather than just having Constantine come into town chasing down one demon or another.

I don’t know, maybe they just wanted to have Constantine on and that was the plot line that mad the most sense (which I’m guessing is true) and it was just a happy coincidence that he had that tie to Sarah and since it was there, they decided to use it in Legends. But I still think that they’ve been hoping that they could make John Constantine a larger part of the DC universe for years. I’m sure there have been issues with rights and scheduling and such, but I’m thinking that someone worked really hard to make it happen. I know CBS gave/sold Supergirl to CW, but John Constantine was on NBC (granted who owns the rights isn’t always as clear cut as checking with station aired the show—something I find fascinating).

I’m wondering if it was long negotiations for the character not just to be leant to the CW. Plus, what I’ve been reading and seeing is leading me to believe that the writers are picking up a large part of the plot from the John Constantine show and where it left off, which I’m thinking might mean more negotiating than just letting them have the character for a couple of things here and there. I think CBS and the CW have some sort of partnership or are similarly owned or something and it was therefore pretty straightforward to move Supergirl to CW.

I think Midnight Texas is on NBC now and I find it kind of interesting that they renewed that show. I’m glad they did because I really enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the next season, but it’s a lot like Constantine in a lot of ways (at least to me). Granted, there are more characters who are not morally ambiguous in Midnight Texas than there were in Constantine. But they’ve got queer characters, demons, angels, magic users, vampires, ghosts, and a host of other crazy creatures. As well as humans that are just plain evil. I feel like maybe they tried to do John Constantine too early. I pretty sure it started right around the time that Arrow and The Flash were taking off and I’m thinking they wanted to get in on the action (I suspect that Supergirl was the same kind of endeavor for CBS), but I’m thinking they didn’t quite know what they were doing—at least not yet. They hadn’t quite “gotten” what had pulled people in about those shows.

I don’t know.

My trip to England is starting to feel real, finally, which is ridiculous because as I write this, I’m literally on the second and final leg of my journey to England. By the time I’m able to make this post, I’ll be in England. One of two things will be true by that time. Either I’ll be in the airport waiting on my family to come get me or I’ll be at the apartment with my family mostly settled and battling the desire to nap the sleep of the jet lagged and exhausted.

It’s an overnight flight which makes you think that you’d get to England and be ready to just run about like you would any other morning. Maybe for some people that’s true. I used to tell myself that I was going to stay up until it was a reasonable time for bed, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually managed it. I also sleep for a good portion of the flight too, but it never seems to matter.

Part Two:

Part of me wants to sleep, like what I usually do. And part of me knows that it’s technically only 1030 right now, I’ve only just had dinner, and I already napped on the other flight. Also, I think that maybe in my head, I’m thinking about landing in England at about 730 am. Thinking that way makes me feel like I have a good eight or nine hours before I’m going to be off this plane meaning that I can stay up a bit longer and still get a full night’s sleep on this plane. Now I am going to land between 7 and 8, but on the east coast, that’s more like between 2 am and 3. Not the same thing at all. I’ve only got two hours or so before they serve “breakfast.” If I have that long considering how it’s now almost 11 (I had to pee, the bathroom struggle is real on a plane y’all).

But I’m set up now where I have “Rampage” on the inflight entertainment playing—I know it’s a terrible movie, but it’s The Rock and it’s amusing—and my iPad on the tray table in front of me. I have a small bottle of wine, they serve it complimentary on this flight guys, and I mean, this kicks ass. The food was pretty good, the dessert was tasty as hell.  It’s been good times. The worst part was the fact that we had to wait about an hour to actually take off, and I used that time to read a novella.

I guess you can tell I’m torn between watching the rest of this dumb movie while I write and napping.

The good news is I think I did manage to finish my Dolls story. There are probably some details I need to add here and there, but it’s complete. It’s gonna be obnoxious trying to post it using my iPad to edit and post the story, but it is what it is.

I should really try to nap. I can finish this movie when they serve breakfast.