I live?

[domarzione]

This seems to be "I haven't posted in forever" amnesty time on my flist, so I suppose I should sign up because it's been almost a year.

I have been busy. I've moved twice in fifteen months. I've bought a house -- an actual house; I've been a homeowner before but it's been an apartment. I drive in rush hour now after not driving at all two years ago, but still not at night if I can avoid it. I am not where or who I was three years ago and probably less of it is due to the pandemic than it should be considering I lived walking distance from all of the mobile fridges full of corpses in Queens.

My fannishness has been at low ebb for a couple of years now because of the tumult -- new job, new geographical region, new life -- and I wish that were not the case. I don't want to be too tired or too busy to be fannish, but I have been. I have the Disney Bundle not because I want to catch up on the several SW series or MCU movies I've been meaning to watch, but instead because ESPN+ is the only way to watch my hockey team now that I'm out of market and the pirate feeds are not always reliable. I would rather watch the Mets pratfall than try to get myself back in the headspace of picking up one of my massive WIPs. I miss it all, but the effort of trying to get it back seems enormous and anything I'm current in canon on (say, 9-1-1) I'm not the right kind of author for. I feel a bit like Wendy kicked out of Neverland. I've never been the kind of fanficcer who can stay in their little happy place and just pretend canon isn't happening around them and it's never bothered me before now.

And I've also never been the kind of fannish person to talk a lot of about what's not fanfic and this space has never been either diary or therapist, so I wonder if this post is even necessary. Is my absence noticed or do I just turn up on someone's cruise through their AO3 bookmarks and "oh, hey, I remember that author!"...

Comments

[sian1359]

I, for one, am happy to have a post from you. Not just because it's playoffs time. Was sorry to see the Rangers dumped so quickly (and Gallant as well), as I had them winning the Eastern in my bracket (and I've liked them since the Rod Gilbert days; yeah, I'm old). Fortunately it seems that my Knights are in it to win it this year, so I've been very happy, but I have also enjoyed all of the hockey playoffs this year (though I'm not a fan of the ESPN folk - I do like TNT/TBS better, but probably in part because I'd gotten so used to them when they were the NBC analysts and commentators.)

Congrats on your house, and we all understand that RL can make fannish life a lot more difficult. Especially if there isn't something out there that pulls you beyond just getting through the days. Probably time for a reread of your SGA stuff anyway.

[domarzione]

It's great to see you, too!

I am sad about the NYR, but not about Gallant, who was not great in NY despite the record and did not elevate the group and alienated a few instead. I root for a rookie coach, although I will take Laviolette (whom I remember from his four NYR games as a player) instead of the morally compromised Quenneville or the abusive Babcock.

The ESPN broadcasts are terrible and now that they are the only option I have been watching them on mute while listening to local radio via the NHL app. Dallas and Vegas both have good radio people, at least. I wanted Seattle-Vegas for the Western Conference Final for the expansion factor and I'm not convinced Dallas has done any better than the Kraken would have. TNT, at least, brings good stuff (although Anson Carter is absolutely the dim bulb on that panel). But I would still give much for an intermission of Lawless & Order during Vegas games.

The house is a work in progress, as all new homes are. I haven't had a lawn to mow in more than a decade and I had to get the place rewired and and and....

[raisintorte]

I am so happy to see a post from you!! Congrats on the house and the move. It’s lovely to see an update.

[domarzione]

Belated (sorry!) thank you from much closer to you than I used to be. :)

[ello]

"Just checking in" is a legitimate post. And congratulations on the house!

Life changes, even good life changes, take it out of you. Perhaps a time of being a consumer instead of a producer will recharge your batteries. Put your feet up and watch some hockey.

[domarzione]

I have been watching lots of hockey! And thank you. :)

[beatrice_otter]

I've noted your absence! Congratulations on the new home, and I hope you have a resurgance of fannishnes ... but if not, that you find something that brings you equal joy.

[domarzione]

Thank you! It's been a few weeks since the move now and it's starting to feel more like a domicile and less like a WIP. (I still have a ton to do.) The cats acclimated faster than I did. I'm hoping I'll be more fannish when I'm less tired.

[wychwood]

Welcome back! The playoffs seem to have been particularly chaotic this year; do you have any investment in the remaining teams??

[domarzione]

Thank you! The playoffs have indeed been chaotic, but I am always on Team Chaos once my squad is out and this year they went out early and in embarrassing fashion.

Out of the four remaining teams, I don't really dislike any of them and generally spend quite a few evenings watching Dallas and Vegas during the regular season. But in the East... Keith Tkachuk was one of my all-time favorite players and Young Matthew spent the first part of his career honing his terrible skills in the other conference (and not pissing off my team), so I will always root for him until he plays the Rangers. But I also want Florida to have a great time this year because it's been such a long time since 1996. And because the NHL is a copycat league and I don't want a bunch of teams copying the low-event style Carolina plays.

[wychwood]

I would say that it was less embarrassing than my team, but in fairness they were trying to be bad and won the lottery against reasonable odds. The shame potential is more in their terrible off-ice choices.

Florida are definitely on a cracking run - I've been mildly enjoying the whole "Sunbelt Final Four" thing after all the years of moaning about how southern cities can never be any good (...although the Yotes do seem to be doing their best to revive that idea).

[domarzione]

Chicago should have been penalized much more severely for what they did off the ice and I am beyond pissed that the NYR are considering Quenneville and that so many other teams are when there's been no visible proof that he has actually come to understand the horror of what he did -- and that in the pursuit nobody else gives a crap, either.

Arizona has been a crisis since they arrived and if it weren't for Bettman's obsession with the Phoenix television market, they would have been relocated a decade ago. They still might not leave because Bettman is exactly this pot-committed. Next summer, it will be Mesa or some other proximate location.

[wychwood]

Yeah, it more-or-less feels like Quenneville doesn't really think he did anything wrong, and one suspects that much of the 1000-hockey-men world probably agrees. I'm sure a lot of other coaches would have done exactly the same; we know from the investigation that plenty of other people in the organisation ignored it quite happily, and I don't think the Hawks are going to be that much of an outlier within the NHL. It's really relentlessly depressing. On the other hand, at least this time the story came out (eventually)...

[domarzione]

Professional sports is amoral and a hundred series of Ted Lasso aren't going to change that. The NHL is better than it was in 2010, but they're still trying to draft Mitchell Miller and Logan Mailloux. They're willing to pretend Sheldon Keefe is absolved of his crimes because he said sorry when pressed on it. They'll take every abuser if he comes with title rings. Being a sports fan is learning to thread a needle between what you can stomach and what your heart wants to believe.

[writerlibrarian]

Glad you stopped by. 🙂

My team didn't even make the post season and suffered the Hextall syndrome. Had a lot of fun watching the Leafs implode. I have no stake in the winner but Paul Maurice is due to win and it would be a third Cup for Patrick Hornqvist which was supposed to be over the hill.

[domarzione]

I have liked you despite your Pens fandom for almost as long as Crosby's been in the league... :)

I've been fond of Maurice since his Hartford days. And my goodness, a Vegas-Miami showdown would be a delight.

[writerlibrarian]

I can't help the Crosby thing, I'm Canadian. 😜

[marcelo]

*waves hi*

[domarzione]

*waves back*

[mirabile]

So happy to see you post! Hockey, movies, books, whatever -- it's lovely to see your name pop up on my flist again

[domarzione]

Thank you so much, really. :)

[blackrook]

*waves*

[domarzione]

I'll have you know that just short of a month after my latest move, I have unboxed the gifts you gave me. And the cats promptly went after them because they'd been too high to reach since we'd left New York.

[blackrook]

It was cruel to deprive them for so long:).

[skieswideopen]

It's nice to hear from you again. Congrats on the house! That sounds very exciting.

I'm not even going to talk about hockey except to say that at least Florida swept the Hurricanes, which makes me feel marginally better about the Leafs losing.

[domarzione]

The Leafs going down like they did was so very them. They put all of their energy into breaking the first round curse and did not plan ahead for the second round. ;)

But you had ridiculous drama since then and now get to be on Matthews Watch!