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Oh hooray! This makes the news even more exciting!!!

Response from DD to GA's tweet:

Jude and Connor are the cutest and I love them so much. Now Monte, on the other hand... You know, I liked her up until this episode. I didn't like the closeness she had with Lena because I didn't like how much Lena was finding support outside of her marriage and I worried that Monte was interested in more than just being a friend, colleague, and confidante. But Monte's behavior in this episode was so horrible. Honestly, I think the writers just took it a little too far because now it's too easy for me to see her as very much in the wrong instead of the storyline being a little more nuanced and relatable. Because first with the line about Lena being so beautiful all I could think was how incredibly inappropriate and unprofessional that was. Then her various comments about, "Sometimes you just have to let go," or whatever when she was pretty blatantly encouraging Lena to split with Stef, and then taking a moment when Lena's confused and sad and making a move on her? Ugh. No, Monte, none of that is okay. I don't know what to think about the accident. From a practical standpoint I don't really care if Jesus dies or goes to boarding school but I'll be happy to be rid of him. But from a story standpoint, his death would just consume the whole next season and I don't look forward to that. But Mariana better be okay! Mariana wins the prize of Most Improved Character by a mile and she seriously rocks these days.

I'm pretty sure that's how I'll be almost no matter what. But I kind of agree that they should be MotW episodes even though I think a lot of people will find that unsatisfying. Just because if it's going to be mytharc it kind of has to be all mytharc--6 episodes isn't enough time to tell a complete mytharc story and also have some episodes focus on MotW--but that means it would be just one story and if CC screws that up that's it. The reason I think a short run of episodes is preferable to a movie is because it means that it could be some good and some bad. If it's all one story arc there's a much higher chance of it being all bad.

This is just so wild. I'm soooooo excited but also nervous as hell that it's going to suck. But we get Scully! And Mulder! How can I not be excited?! Chris Carter better not fuck this up too badly.

This may be my favorite mini ever!

This is likely true, but I think it's pretty clear that Jude has been wanting to have such a conversation because he's been confused about what's going on with Connor. I also think it's pretty clear that Connor wasn't ready for that conversation. But now that Connor's come out to his dad maybe he's ready. Though I wouldn't expect a lengthy, heart-felt conversation or anything. I think what they need and what I'd like to see is just something kind of definitive to clear up confusion between them about what their relationship is. "So...do you like me?" "Yeah." "And you don't like Daria?" "Not really." "Okay."

Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory certainly seems to be asexual even though I'm not sure the term has been explicitly applied to him on the show. But as he's also not otherwise...typical? (I'm struggling with what words to use here)...he may not exactly be considered to be good representation of the orientation. And he's in a romantic relationship with someone who isn't asexual, which is I think an interesting and important thing to explore/show but as it's a silly comedy I can't say they treat it in a particularly sensitive or insightful way. As for Connor I'd like to think him having made that one statement via text--that he told his dad he's gay--isn't necessarily the end of the story. He may be using that term somewhat loosely. Or he may be at a point where he's still sort of working things out and since he clearly likes Jude his reaction is to identify as gay. Perhaps further thought/discovery/conversation will lead him to identify as bisexual, which I think would be nice. Or maybe Jude will be bi/pan/something else. He hasn't explicitly stated what his orientation is, has he? At any rate, I think the possibility still remains for bisexuality to be represented on the show.

I've stubbed my fair share of toes, though my clumsiness is usually more along the lines of walking into things. Walking into the corners of tables and counters all the time and even just walking into doorframes. If I'm not paying attention it happens more often than it probably should that I go to walk through a doorway and kind of miss and bash my shoulder into the doorframe. At any rate, I definitely think I qualify as clumsy-ish. I've only broken my toe once and it was by jamming it (very hard, apparently) into the edge of a carpet. I was drunk at the time (this was when I was in college) and didn't realize I'd injured myself until the next morning when I woke up and found dried blood all over my leg. When I jammed my toe I fell down and my knee landed on some jewel cases which broke and the plastic cut my knee. The first thing I did that morning with my broken to was to go in search of the shoes that I'd been wearing when I left my room the previous evening but shed at some point in my drunkenness so that I returned to my room barefoot.

I think the Willow thing is complicated for all the reasons that sexuality in general can be complicated. I remember feeling annoyed when Willow identified herself as a lesbian because to me it felt like it partially invalidated the relationship she'd had with Oz and the feelings she'd had for Xander. I loved Willow and Oz as a couple (I also was a fan of Willow and Tara as a couple) and could not read that relationship as anything other than one where both people involved were genuinely in love (and attracted to each other), so my feeling was that clearly Willow had experienced romantic and sexual attraction to men so if she then also experienced those things for women that would make her bisexual. Identifying her as a lesbian seemed to somehow retcon the Willow/Oz relationship as something less than it had been written/shown at the time. And on top of that there's the significant problem in pop culture but more generally just in life of people seeming to think that a person's sexual/romantic identity is a function of who they're involved with, so if a bisexual person is dating/married to someone of the same sex they're labeled gay/lesbian but if they're dating/married to someone of the opposite sex they're labeled as straight. When a woman--a character or real--who is bisexual becomes involved with another woman it seems like they are almost always labeled as a lesbian, even if that's not how they personally identify. The Willow situation just seemed to follow that pattern. Having said all of that, I'm not particularly bothered now by Willow identifying as a lesbian for a couple of reasons. One is simply that I know orientation can be a kind of complicated thing for some people and is very personal--that a woman might feel like "lesbian" is the most accurate description of how they feel even though they have experienced attraction and love at least at one time for a man. The other is that I firmly believe in some cases a person's orientation can undergo natural shifts. Granted, in Willow's case it seemed awfully abrupt so I think it makes more sense to believe that she just found something deeper/stronger with Tara than she'd ever experienced before and that made her realize that women were it for her. At any rate, Willow's case is one where I can see both sides of the issue. I definitely understand why people are annoyed or even angry that she was written to identify as lesbian rather than bisexual, but I also don't think the fact that she did have legitimate relationships with guys before she met Tara means she couldn't be a lesbian or that it was wrong for her to identify that way.

There aren't any changes I made that I actually think helped. The vet was concerned it could be an allergy or sensitivity to certain foods so they had me try a couple of different prescription foods with very limited ingredients and uncommon proteins--one was rabbit and I can't remember what the other one was--mostly to test for allergies by eliminating other foods from her diet. And I think before that for a while they had me feed her a prescription food that's specifically supposed to be very easy on digestion. None of that made any difference and I currently just feed her regular old Iams (mostly wet but also some dry). I know one thing they always check at the vet is elasticity of the skin by grabbing ahold of some skin on the upper back and pulling it up then seeing if it snaps right back when let go. If it doesn't then that can be a sign of dehydration.

There are actually no episodes on our top 20 list that make me cringe. There are some I would drop off the list in order to replace them with others, but I genuinely love every episode on that list.

I've never thought about black sand but I do always try as hard as I can when shoveling/snowblowing to get my driveway clear at least to the point that some of the blacktop shows through because that helps melt the snow/ice that remains if it gets any sunlight even if it's still below freezing. Granted this works much better in places where the sun actually hits the driveway than it does at my house, however, where my driveway is pretty much 100% in the shade. (Yesterday as I drove home from work I was looking around and noticed that every driveway I went by was not only completely melted but dry after the overnight snow and then a day of warmth and sun, but my driveway still had big patches of snow on it. Lucky me. Today it's all melted, though. So warm!)

My cat's been puking about every other day, too. But she's had bouts of puking before. Twice now, about a year apart, she went through a pretty scary period when she was puking pretty much daily and stopped eating almost entirely. It would start with her puking every few days and throwing up food (not right after eating, though) and then progress to eating less and less and puking more frequently and throwing up bile. I took her to the vet both times and had various tests done and made changes to her diet and eventually (after about a month or two) it just stopped. She never had any symptoms other than the puking and lack of appetite--was always energetic and everything--and the vet never figured out what was wrong. Anyway, I'm worried that might be happening again. So far she's eating but she's throwing up at least a couple times a week. She did throw up a hairball, but that was a couple of weeks ago and the puking hasn't stopped. I think as long as she otherwise seems fine I won't worry about it. Taking her to the vet is so expensive and having had so many appointments in the past where they basically say, "Well, we can't find anything wrong with her and since she has no other symptoms I wouldn't worry too much!" makes me reluctant to bring her in again. This isn't helpful, I realize, since I have no answers for you. But I have sympathy!

Wow. That's pretty amazing.

Well, "Make a boiled dinner", which is the only thing I ever do for St. Patrick's Day (and which I do intend to do) wasn't an option. So I went for being in line for the English crown.

I've been at my current (also first) job for almost 9 years now. I think it's likely but not definite that I'll stay here for my entire career. If a position opens up at the school in the town where I live I will almost certainly apply, since that is a) a good school, and b) a few blocks from my house. Some of the other towns that are closer to where I live and that are good schools and would probably be good places to teach have freshmen take physics, and that's not something I'd be really into. But I mostly really like where I work and I feel very comfortable here and the thought of going somewhere else and being the new person and likely having to really change the way I do things...eh, it's not that appealing.

I haven't watched Hannibal in part because I'm a little worried about the gore element and in part just because I already watch too much stuff, but I might check it out over the summer because I hear good things about it. But I do think it's a riot that Hannibal and Aquarius are going to be back-to-back.

I did not notice that. Looking at IMDb it seems this was the first episode of this show that he's directed, but apparently he directed three episodes of Joan of Arcadia. Cool!

In other Gillian news, The Fall has officially been renewed for a third season. Yay! I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Stella Gibson yet.

Man, that episode was kind of rough. The Thalidomide thing caught me completely by surprise and it was, I suppose, appropriate for Shelagh and Dr. Turner to be so happy and smiling after sending the woman off with her prescription given that they obviously don't know what is to come, but man that was kind of rough to watch. And Trixie's alcoholism has been going on all season so I guess the fact that she's seeking help is actually a positive development, but at this point it still feels more sad than hopeful. And Delia...that was just a big old gut punch. I didn't really expect Delia and Patsy to just have smooth sailing, but amnesia? Seriously?! Right when they're about to start their life together in their own flat? Just...good grief! Sure, the plotline with the deaf woman's baby and the Fred/Violet wedding were both happy stories and I'm always very happy to see Chummy, but those bits weren't nearly enough to make this a cheerful or very hopeful episode. I don't think I've ever ended a season of this show feeling so depressed. I do have hope that next season will show things looking up for Trixie and that the Patsy/Delia storyline isn't over--it's not unusual for this sort of memory loss to be temporary, is it?--but still...so depressing.

Yeah, we turned out a damned fine top 20 list, I think. My personal list would probably only have a few differences in terms of the episodes included and then a bunch of rearranging, but would not be that far off from our group effort. And I think that list is much stronger than the Empire list.

Seems like we agree, Niuxita. I initially thought you were saying that people shouldn't make accusations of homophobia or queerbaiting on some shows because other shows have enough gay characters and relationships on them. But if all you mean is that sometimes people perceive queerbaiting when it's not there...yeah, totally. And people can become unreasonable about so many fandom-related things, shipping being certainly a prominent one, so I totally agree sometimes people really need to take a step back. The shows I see mentioned most frequently when it comes to queerbaiting are Rizzoli and Isles and Supernatural, two that you mention may actually be guilty of this. I see enough R&I marketing/etc. to be convinced they are ( seems like pretty solid evidence to me) but really don't know much at all about Supernatural. Or OUAT. Outside of queerbaiting, though, I do think what's much more common is what galax-arena described, which is a situation in which a pair of characters have a particular dynamic--maybe not one that was the original intent of the writers, even, but one that develops over the course of a series--that, if it occurred between two characters of opposite sex, would almost certainly be developed into a romantic relationship but since it's between two characters of the same sex it seems like the writers don't even consider the possibility. As I mentioned earlier, I consider this more an issue of heteronormativity than homophobia. But it's something that I think viewers are reasonable to be frustrated about even though I certainly don't think every time viewers perceive romantic or sexual chemistry between two characters it means the writers should automatically turn them into a couple (for one thing, that wouldn't be possible, since viewers will never all agree on where the chemistry lies). I think that sort of situation is only going to become less and less common, though.

I think it's fine that there are shows that don't have LGBT characters, but just because there are shows that do doesn't mean there's no homophobia (though I think it's generally more about heteronormativity than homophobia) or queerbaiting going on in the writing/directing/producing/marketing/etc. of some shows. And I think it's perfectly fine for people to point it out and complain about it when they see it.