The Mezzanine

I went to a comedy show last night. Currently in Australia, but it's usually in the UK. If you're reading my blog, you'd probably enjoy it.

It's called BUFFY REVAMPED. And what happens is, Spike stands on stage for an hour, telling everyone the plot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's hilarious.

Highlights include:
- Songs from the perspective of Buffy, Faith, and Xander (all performed by Spike wearing appropriate bits of costume)
- An overhead projector presentation about the Initiative
- Season 5 told mainly through poems by William the Bloody

He described Dawn as being "like a new board game, or a Christopher Nolan film; not shit, but you need time to get used to it".


It's fun! Go see it!

I tried to discuss this with my best friend, but a performing arts background is not among her many virtues, so she doesn't really get it.

Hence, venting to those of you who care:

I am currently checking out secondary schools in my local area, because my son will need to go to one in 2027. We're looking at state and private schools (assuming those private schools are at least vaguely affordable), and going to as many school tours as we can.

This morning, I went to one that would be perfect at handling my autistic, socially-awkward, kind-of-a-flailing-mess kid. They have great support, great strategies in place for neurodivergent students, and a really nice school culture.

Their academic program is nothing to write home about, but is fine.

…and their performing arts program is nonexistent. No bands, no concerts, no drama classes. They can learn music as an elective subject, but that's it.

Guys. I don't think I can send my kidlets to a school that doesn't do lots of performing arts. I just… no. NO.

I want them to be able to play music with their friends, and do the school musical, and join a band. And apparently this is important enough to me that every other positive aspect of the school fades into the background.

I swear I'm not trying to be ridiculously shallow. But being a musical person was such a huge part of my life – and still is – and is pretty important to my kids, too. They're both musicians, and both trying to get better at their instruments, and the idea of sending them to a school that doesn't value that part of them just… hurts my soul.

I can't quite manage Michelle Trachtenburg dying.

I know she's not Dawn, but she sort of is Dawn. As well as being so many other characters I love – which, I mainly love them because there is Michelle, still being Michelle, and still sort of being Dawn even though she's not Dawn anymore.

Life can be so unpredictable. And so brief.

I'm overseas again! This time for a two-week journey around New Zealand's North Island.

It's really fun, so far. And so very close to Australia that I keep forgetting that I've left my country. (Exceptions: the lack of gumtrees, the astonishing amounts of Te Reo Maori written on all the signs, and the money.) Even the accents aren't giving it away – because New Zealanders are so often in Australia that I'm pretty used to them.

So far, I've landed in Auckland, driven up to the Bay of Islands (a nice, beachy area), and driven back down to Hamilton (a lovely town, with some gorgeous parkland). Tomorrow we go to Second Breakfast at Hobbiton, before spending a week in Rotorua.

It's really nice getting my kids to the age where travelling with them ISN'T just horribly stressful.

Excuse me while I import an argument from Reddit over to Dreamwidth...

I mean, this is worrying. So you just completely ignore all the context? Everything bad he's done? Just so you can have your little "twu wub" nonsense? Like, ship who you want, but acknowledge what is actually there.

And flamey hands of goodness? You mean when he specifically realised and voiced the fact that Buffy doesn't love him romantically at the time?

Oh, my dear anti-Spuffy person. *sighs*

(1) In my very long list of reasons why I ship Buffy/Spike, I didn't once mention "true love". In fact, I barely mentioned love at all.

(2) Whether or not Buffy and Spike have "true love", and whether or not Buffy is in love with Spike during Chosen is fairly irrelevant to whether or not I'm allowed to ship them.

(3) No, I'm not ignoring all the bad stuff Spike has done. It's just not a reason that I ship Buffy/Spike, which is what I was talking about.

(4) If you're planning on shipping Buffy only with people who haven't ever been evil, you're confining yourself to Riley and Xander as potential partners. Do you in fact ship Buffy/Riley or Buffy/Xander?

(5) If you do, as I suspect, actually ship Buffy/Angel, why on earth do you think that Angel's history of bad behaviour is more forgiveable than Spike's?

(6) Is all this mainly about the attempted rape? And if so, why would I consider that a bigger barrier to a relationship than the fact that he's eaten people?

Pet peeve on the subject of Hogwarts houses: people deciding that, clearly, a character must be in Slytherin, just because they're evil.

So Angelus, Spike, Lex Luthor, Scorpius, Sylar, Biff Tannen, Reynard, Norman Osborn, Kate Argent, Fire Lord Ozai, and Magneto are clearly all in Slytherin. And there is no personality difference between them. No difference in how they'd each approach a problem.



Seriously, I'm pretty sure that Angelus is a Ravenclaw, and Lex Luthor (at least in his Smallville incarnation) is a Griffindor.

Also, Veronica Mars – who is, in no way, at all evil – is clearly a Slytherin.

I'm halfway through writing a (longish) Lois Lane fic, and I wrote a line that delighted me. I simply had to share:

Lois asks a couple of insightful questions, and starts sketching notes on her article as the Mayor answers everyone else’s less interesting questions.

That is all. :)

There are ads for ambulance-chasing lawyers EVERYWHERE.

You guys flip lightswitches UP to turn them on, instead of down.

When Canadians say "this is closed for winter", what they really mean is "this will not be open until summer".

Cars only have numberplates on the back, instead of front and back.

"Sausage" means anything made of sausage meat, rather than actual sausages.

Turning right on red is something I knew about in advance, but it is still an utterly crazy concept that freaks me out whenever I do it.

Squirrels can be BLACK! I had no idea.

I've been in New York City for the last five days. Leaving for upstate in the morning.

We have seen: the Empire State Building, a show on Broadway, Times Square, Grand Central Station, the Public Library, the Twin Towers Memorial, Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Natural History Museum, Washington Square Park, Prospect Park, and far too many subway stations to count.

Random observings:
- New Yorkers have ghastly traffic manners (both foot and road – the cars start beeping at the slightest provocation, and I have been sworn at twice for accidentally stepping in front of someone) but the loveliest subway manners. Every time I walk onto a train with my kids people are immediately leaping to their feet to offer us seats. (In Melbourne, they'd be trying to ignore me in the hopes that they could sit, even if I looked actively disabled.)

- America's reputation for Mexican food is justified! It's delicious. (America's reputation for hamburgers is, so far, leaving me sadly disappointed.)

- Spanish is EVERYWHERE. I am no longer surprised at the number of English-speaking Americans who seem to absorb Spanish by osmosis.

- Black people here have the most exquisitely fascinating hairstyles I have ever seen. I keep wanting to compliment them, and then deciding they might think I'm racist, or something.

- All your shop doors are, to my Australian eyes, installed backwards. I'm used to pushing my way into shops, and pulling my way out. Here, all the doors swing out into the street.

- Security at tourist attractions is incredibly tight. I keep getting asked to do bag x-rays, and metal detectors, and who knows what else. At the Statue of Liberty, the metal detector picked up the buttons on my jeans (and everyone else's jeans – they were wanding every second person). In Australia, the most I've ever been asked for is a basic bag check.

- TV has not lied to me about the demographics of different professions. So far, hospitality has been 80% hispanic with the occasional black person, security has been 80% black with the occasional hispanic person, and subway employees have been split, 50-50. Nowhere there have I seen a single white person.

- If I were living in New York, I would prefer Brooklyn to Manhattan. Far more my speed. (My hotel is in Brooklyn.)

- My favourite things to see were the Public Library, and Washington Square Park. Both are free. Highly recommend them, especially if you visit the park on a weekend.

Just finished three days in DC! It is a great capital city, but not so much a great city. In that: all the touristy stuff is awesome, and all easy to get to – but the city feels like a bunch of buildings surrounding some tourist attractions. If you weren't interested in the tourist attractions, it wouldn't be much fun to live in, I don't think.

Random collection of thoughts:
- Their train system is excellent.
- The Lincoln Memorial is HUGE. And made me tear up.
- It somehow never occurred to me that people would use the National Mall as an actual park! We got there on a day when half the town was at the Mall flying kites.
- Rock Creek Park is lovely. If I lived there, I would walk along it at least once a week.
- The Cathedral is gorgeous. Matthew Shepard's tomb made me rather teary, as did their collection of paintings showing Mary and Jesus as caged refugees and Mister Rogers as a saint.
- I actually like the numbered/lettered street names better than I thought I would! Really helpful for keeping track of where you are. Even more convenient once I realised that all the state-named avenues were diagonal.
- I kept walking past supermarkets, wondering where the supermarkets were. Because the outside of them didn't trigger my "hey, that's a supermarket" at all. Also, foreign supermarkets always sell wine, which weirds my Aussie self out.

Now we're left for NYC. Far rainier than we'd like, but we'll still have fun.