To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

Rumors of my demise, etc.

I haven't skated since March 13th, and I miss the hell out of it. The rinks have been open since Memorial Day with limited skaters per session, cleaning between sessions, and whatnot, but it's just not worth getting the damn virus, particularly as TN is one of the states where infections are soaring. I'm of the age where I'm not really worried about dying from it--in fact, the same gene that causes ankylosing spondylitis has actually been proven to confer greater resistance to RNA viruses like this one, including HIV and hepatitis, so I have that in my favor--but the after effects scare the shit out me.

Because of the AS, my 100% is already like a normal person's 80%. I sure don't need to develop chronic fatigue or organ damage on top of that. Not to mention I have a history of developing post-viral chronic conditions. The whole post-hysterectomy sepsis adventure triggered the AS, and I developed what appears to be cough-variant asthma a couple years ago after a cold that turned into bronchitis. Oh, and of course there was the acute kidney injury I really don't need a repeat of. So, I'm going to continue to stay put in my house and scream at the deficiency and malignancy of our federal leadership.

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You are all fired for not telling Riker and Troi show up in an episode of Picard! I haven't watched the show; Picard's fine, but does not inspire me to pay for CBS's streaming service, and I kind of forgot to check in on it and see if it was worth watching. But I did watch the Riker/Troi scenes folks have uploaded to YouTube, and while I never would have figured they would end up living in a cabin in the woods on a random planet, Riker having gone full Mountain Man pizza chef and Troi growing acres of vegetables, with a daughter who runs wild with a bow and arrow, I like it. Death of their son aside, they seemed happy.

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I started writing fic again, for the first time in...uh. A while. It's a little China Beach fic, a fluffy extension to the magical-realism-and-ballroom-dancing episode "Skylark." It's making me smile.

I'm also reading fic again, starting with TNG fic due to their Picard appearance, and wandering into Voyager and some other old fandoms I haven't thought about in years. I still feel kind of cut off from fandom in general, given the move to Tumblr and not having been into a current fandom since...uh...Castle, maybe? but it's nice to wander down memory lane.

So, Star Trek. I went to see it in iMax today (which, as far as I can tell, was not significantly different from watching it on a regular screen--perhaps it was a bit more "high def," since I'm not sure you could see, like, chicken pox scars on people's faces on a regular screen, but it wasn't worth the extra money, IMO). Despite it being all over my flist, I haven't really been paying attention to the publicity or the buzz about the film, so I went in unsure what to expect--I'd seen the trailer when it came out, categorized it as "teen action flick," and went about my business until it came out and I heard murmurings that it was actually good. My history with the Trek franchise skips rather prominently over TOS; I've seen all of TNG, most of DS9, and most of Voyager, although I've been trying to block out much of that last one (Janeway's holoboyfriend for the LOSE). I have, however, seen enough bits and pieces of TOS (and been exposed to it through cultural seepage) to figure out the majority of the jokes and references in the film. Although I was embarrassingly fannish about TNG, DS9, and VOY for a time in middle and high school, I haven't seen an episode or anything for something like a decade now.

( Spoilery stuff )

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( A few spoilers for Castle )

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( And some more for Cupid )