this was totally supposed to be funnier than it ended up being. and also, you know, not written, probably. but.


[you know how they say], Buffy and Harry Potter (AU post HBP) crossover, Willow and Hermione.
"Willow, you tried to end the world." It sounds somehow smaller when Hermione says it. Not that anyone else really says it, but Willow can practically hear them all think it. "What, exactly, is the step after that?"


This is completely the fault of annakovsky, kyrafic, and throughadoor (who, like in days of yore, also beta-ed and consulted). Thanks to all of you, I guess? Title from a British Sea Power song.

Okay, people. I know you're all gonna sigh and say "sure, she only posts when she wants something." Which, is kind of true, I guess, so, go ahead, sigh. I'll wait.

...

Anyway. I am in a FOUL mood. And I only expect it to get worse over the next few days. So, tell me, oh friends list and other people reading my lj: What is the best song to listen to when you are really, really, HARRY POTTER ALL-CAPS angry?

Comment, please, so I can download in preparation?

Merci, as always.

At the TCA Awards last night, Greg Daniels devoted half of his acceptance speech for "The Office" winning best comedy to boasting that he was already at page 450, then suggesting how he would cast the in-attendance second bananas as Potter characters: Brian Baumgartner/Kevin as Hagrid, Mindy Kaling/Kelly as either Parvati or Luna (he couldn't decide), Angela Kinsey/Angela as Dolores Umbridge, Kate Flannery/Meredith as Aunt Petunia, Oscar Nunez/Oscar as Viktor Krum, Leslie David Baker/Stanley as Uncle Vernon, and Creed Bratton/Creed as Lucius Malfoy. (Halfway through, Greg asked, "Is this too nerdy for everybody?")

From Alan Sepinwall's TV Blog. (IF YOU FOLLOW THAT LINK, YOU WILL FIND HP BOOK 7 SPOILERS-- PLEASE BE CAREFUL!) Someone in the comments points out that Kelly = Lavendar Brown and that Ron/Lavendar in Book 6 was rather Ryan/Kelly-esque. So true.

I'm just saying, to everyone in the world who gave up on Lost and mocked me for my perseverence: ( Suckers! )

Dude. YES.

Okay, a meme:

Comment here with a word, a phrase, a pairing I like, a book I like, a story I wrote, really anything -- and I'll give you the tracklisting for a short soundtrack/fanmix to it.

Thoughts?

Here are answers to the questions recieved so far. Please feel free to ask me more!

annavtree's ( questions )

dine's ( questions )

honey_wheeler's ( questions )

Last night I saw the Apples in Stereo. They were adorably disorganized. Like, poured water on the set list, broken guitar strings, botched intros, lead singer has the flu, band members mysteriously running off stage, wacky antics disorganized. It was cute. Plus, each of the five band members appeared to represent a different sub-genre of hipster-- there was the Insane!Hipster (possibly too influenced by the Flaming Lips, was dressed as a spaceman), the Suit-Wearing!Hipster, the Trying-too-Hard!Hipster, the Way-Too-Old!Hipster, the Half-Casual/Half-Formal-Just-Found-These- Clothes-On-the-Floor-But-Not-Really!Hipster, and the Bookish-Geeky!Hipster. Something for everyone! The guy dressed in the space suit totally looked like George Michael Bluth, too, which was oddly disconcerting.

And yes, the music was also enjoyable for those who care about that kind of thing and no, Elijah Wood's soul-eating eyes were not present, for those who care about that kind of thing¹. I also thought there would be more people there who talked about the band "selling out" due to the whole appearing-on-Colbert, having-to-talk-about-Frodo-in-every-interview, slightly-more-hi-fi-(read:commercial)-new-album thing, but apparently either they've gathered enough new fans that the old school hipsters were outnumbered or they just don't care about "sell-outs" anymore.


In further adventures in cake, today I made what we're calling the "Confused By Death Cake" in honor of Orlando Bloom's primary facial expression (see: LotR 1-3, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, Elizabethtown, etc.). It definitely lived up to it's name due to an unfortunate accident while transferring it to the wire rack. We don't have two of any size cake pan (i.e., square or round), so I made a single sheet cake with the intention of cutting it in half to make a layer cake. But, in transfer it broke into several more than two pieces. [sigh] Still, as coquettemoves pointed out, as long as it's edible, it doesn't qualify as a "cake disaster" despite my moaning and declaring it such. Anyway. I made the Amy Sedaris vanilla cake recipe, with a white chocolate-strawberry creme filling² I think if I made this cake under normal circumstances, I'd just top it with more fresh strawberries and powdered sugar, however a) the massacre that was the cake needed to be disguised and b) I had a bowl of pink buttercream leftover from Valentine's so I iced the whole thing with that. It defintely looked lopsided and confused by death, but it tasted pretty good-- everyone ate it, anyway.

We watched Troy and it was as fantastic as always. Something interesting, though: I saw Venus last week and was totally creeped out by how OLD Peter O'Toole was and then watching Troy, I remembered that he was also creepily old in that. So, um, go Peter O'Toole for managing to continue to live as a possibly undead corpse. But do please stop making inappropriately sexual movies if you don't mind. (There is a scene in Venus that will haunt me for the rest of my days and I think that annakovsky and moireach feel the same way. If you've seen the movie, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Creepy.)

Anyway, Troy. I still maintain that it's so much less worse than it could have been. There are at least six things I genuinely like about it³ and at least five things I LOVE because they suck⁴. As well as, of course, a delightful opportunity to point out all the ways in which they massacre the greatest story ever told (fucking Briseis!). I mean, I own it, so clearly there's something that keeps me coming back, right? Right.


Lastly, if anyone would like to ask me 5 questions about whatever you might want to know about, I would be WAY into that.



1. Though, if any actor was going to own a label just so he could go on tour with indie rock acts, I can see that it would be Elijah.

2. I had strawberries I needed to use, so I cut them up, soaked them in vanilla, then mashed and cooked down with a teaspoon of sugar. I had white chocolate chips leftover from the eggnog fudge I made at Christmas which I stirred into the berries 'til melted. Then I cooled the whole thing and slapped it between the two layers of cake.

3. Sean Bean. Eric Bana the Actor. The Horse. Brad Pitt's naked ass and general physical Achilles-ness. The cinematography. Saffron Burrows.

4. "Cousin. He's my cousin. Cousin. Totally my cousin. In conclusion: Cousin." Flaming balls of twine! That Helen of Troy is way less pretty than Orlando Bloom. All attempts by Orlando Bloom to act in any way. Brian Cox and his amazing scenery meals. Etc.

[insert rage coma here] So I got summoned for Grand Jury duty. I'd actually like to do it in that I think that jury service is a civic duty and yadda yadda yadda. Howver, I really can't and probably won't have to as it truly is a financial hardship-- my job is only legally required to pay for 3 days and after that it's like $50/day and I can't manage on that nor do I have enough vacation days to use. The thing that upsets me the most about that is it raises the question of who isn't it a financial harship for and so who exactly ends up on these juries? I worry about these things, man. But, none of that is actually the cause of the aforementioned rage coma.

Along with the summons, there was a summons-confirmation form that needs to be returned within 10 days of reciept. It says on it, though, that if you have internet access, you can complete the form online. I realized this morning that I hadn't yet done this, so I went online to do it. At the mass.gov website, did I find an online version of the form? NO, I did not. What I found were INSTRUCTIONS for completing the paper version and mailing it in. COME ON, MASSACHUSETTS. Get your head out of your asses and get Al Gore on the line to teach you how to use the internets. Seriously? Argh.


Things:

1. This week I have bitched at people for being both heterophobic and heteronormative. I feel truly fair and balanced about now. (FYI, the latter was WC and it was vawes, let me tell you what.)

2. I am OBSESSED with cake lately. I made bday cake for the D a few weeks ago and Superbowl cake and cupcakes and then I made heart-shaped mini-cakes for Valentines'. I think I'm going to make more for our viewing of Troy tomorrow (til_shes_irish has never seen it and coquettemoves requested that imogenics and I ruin it for her). Mmmm...cake + Brad Pitt's naked ass + Eric Bana the Actor = yummy.

3. After the Justin concert, throughadoor called me and asked "if you were going to post about the Justin concert, what would you post about?" and I was all indignant because if I told her that and she posted it, what would I post about? "you're going to post?" she asked. ...well, I was, I swear. Anyway, it was truly truly vawes. He looked good, he sang all pretty, he played more than one intstrument and DUDE, Timbaland was there. I totally didn't expect that. Most importantly, he did a tequilla shot onstage and toasted "the girls from Northeastern University [or Tufts, maybe], you know who you are..." and after sitting through the whole concert AND watching the "What Goes Around" video all I have to say to those girls is bitch, JT's gonna kill you. He's still crazy. Oh, plus, we TOTALLY saw someone who was most probably Trace under the stage and you know me, man, that's really all I need.

4. Quick tv thoughts, using the classic haiku summary method

( Heroes, Studio 60, Gilmore, VMars, Idol, Lost, Office, Scrubs, Smallville, SPN, Rome, L Word, BSG )

And now I need to go take a shower.

I didn't really mention it, but during the last few weeks of the football season I became deeply obsessed with the sport. It was all I wanted to talk about or think about. And then, well. Yeah. So now I need to mentally fill that whole. And with what have I apparently decided to fill said whole? The T. I am deeply and completely obsessed with the T and all its failings. I talk about it with everyone, I read every possible T blog and every non-T blog that is linked by Universal Hub or Bostonist for talking about the T. I have emailed the T three times in the last two weeks. I'm fascinated with all the ways that they've managed to fuck up what could have been a brilliant new system. Etc. I don't know, it's weird, but it's just who I am now.


During the holidays, I let myself get about 7 episodes behind on BSG and I had pretty much decided I wasn't going to bother to catch up since nothing I heard really inspired me. But everyone seemed to like last week's ep, so last night when I returned from Maine, I decided to watch all the eps on the DVR (with the exception of one which I mercifully accidentally deleted). And, ( well, )


In other tv news, not-so quick (oops) thoughts on Veronica Mars episode 3.10, ( Show Me the Monkey )

Also, The L Word is delightfully, trashily, enjoyable again, and not in a "I enjoy screaming and praying for death" kind of way, but in a first/early second season kind of way. And Idol is Seacrest-tastic, as always. But, I have nothing more intelligent than that to say about either of them.

Two nights ago (or so), I had a dream that while on vacation with some people that included the Fleck and J.Garn, I was bit by a rat. I passed out at some point, they put me to bed, and in the morning the Fleck told me he would take me to the hospital, but he had to go to the grocery store. The night before, I had a dream that I was Gaius Baltar and I was dating some dude (no, not Gaeta, since my roommate asked). And last night, it was that Kiefer Sutherland was running the elections for the suburban community we lived in and was doing so with an IRON FIST. What is up with my brain, yo?


So, yes, I am very weepy that we didn't win at the football and am avoiding all mentions of [censored]Face until, well, pretty much the end of time, I think. I also spent all day yesterday praying for death due to wretched hangover, which did not help. But, then last night, after a lovely chat with a delightfully unshaven WC, I left work and it was snowing. Real snow that stuck and actually accumulated and it was SO pretty and peaceful and vawes that I actually felt deeply content. Oh, New England, you always know how to make it up to me.


In other news, The Office and Rome continue to make me want to make out with my television. OMG I can't even decide who I enjoy more on Rome because everyone is so fucking badass. And I really want to devote some time to stalking BJ Novak after those Golden Globe drunken party pics. I was telling annakovsky the other day that I feel like while everyone else is all hung up on JKras, my deep burning LOVE for BJ Novak goes stealthily unnoticed. It is pleasant.

I saw Pan's Labyrinth the other day and while I wouldn't go so far as to agree with R that I wish I hadn't seen it, I would not recommend it. Especially not to the faint-of-stomach as it is unnessarily gory in all ways. Overall, the biggest problem was that it just wasn't enough of any given extreme and so just sort of was and was boring. Eh. It's pretty, though, in a way.


And lastly, let's all take a moment to note that Lance is hanging out with Chad Allen, because that's what famous gays do. VAWES. I hope he got some inside scoop on what went down on the Dr. Quinn set.


My computer battery icon has a giant red X over it, which I think is not so much a good sign. eek.

Okay, this meme is vawes:

- Give me one of my own stories,and a timestamp sometime in the future after the end of the story, orsometime in the past before the story started, and I'll write you atleast a thousand hundred words or so of what happened then, whether it's five minutes before the story started or ten years in the future.

I'm pretty sure we all know that it will probably take me forever to do this, but it's so cool. So. Yes.

I am going to make a real post soon, I swear...

So, I can't remember the 10th album all of a sudden, but I totally need to go watch Top Chef, so here's what I've got. ETA: I remembered!

With mp3s for all...
( Top 10 Albums of 2006 )

I was going to do my year-end lists, etc, but then OMG, "Abyssinia, Henry" was on and so OBV, I had to stop, drop and weep like a small girl, OMG. Seriously, I have seen that ep MANY MANY MANY times and it never stops being the SADDEST thing in the entire known universe. For reals, yo. Radar's little face! And Hawkeye and Trapper just working and Father Mulcahey clutching at his chest and OMG, RADAR. Ahem.

So, that took away the half hour I had blocked out for lj. I will do the damn lists though, this weekend, even if it is too late. Screw time, it's not the boss of me anyway.

Now it's time to watch my stories sitcoms about sensitive men and the workplaces that love them. Or something.

yuletide recs, A-D (though I didn't finish 'D,' so there will eventually be more there, I assume)

+Agatha Christie: [Coffee and Cognac], Poirot/Hastings
He was ahead of me in so many ways that I almost despaired of everknowing what it was that he understood so quickly; but, as I thoughtover that evening in Brussels and this morning's exchange that hadmirrored it, I felt another blush begin to creep across my face.

+Almost Famous: [Love Comes and Goes], Penny Lane
Her mother doesn't understand when she says she needs to go to Morocco, but she gives her the money nonetheless.

+Askewniverse: [Banky Knows What it is All About], Banky/Hooper
Panels, he saw the panels of the art as the angles tilted. Banky snorted and giggled. It looked like he was in a comic.

+Boy Meets World: [if all the world and love were young], Cory/Shawn
"You can't actually unmarry a person," Cory said after she left andShawn sat down on the clean expensive leather of the new couch andnodded, accepting.

+Clue: the Movie: [Miss Manners Would Not Approve], Wadsworth
"And I'd wager Miss Manners would have something to say on the heading of `blackmail', when it comes right down to it."

+The Chronicles of Narnia: [Lives by Breaking], Pevensies gen
Lucy turns her face to him. She says, "I remember you."

+Deadwood: [between hay and grass], Joanie (w/ a brilliant allusion to Jae's Deadwood/pop xover)
The blonde whore sets down the glasses with a pepperbox crack for eachone; some of the liquor slops out across her hand and she raises it toher mouth without a thought.

+Deadwood: [Chance Favors the Mind], Doc, Jane
The whiskey burned going down, and smelled predictably of turpentine, but it wasn't the worst he'd ever tasted.

+Deadwood: [My hands remember hers], Jane/Joanie
The graveyard's silent, like the birds all went inside too, and Janefinds a snort of laughter bubbling up through her nose at the thought.

+Dexter: [Use Your Illusion, Too], Deb
Her therapist suggested no new men for six months.

+Dexter: [The Great Unifier], Dexter, Brian (wicked spoilery)
"Dexter! Where is Dexter? I need to see Dexter!"

+Dexter: [Love in Prompts: Dexter Theatre], Dexter/Rita
I feel a sense of obligation to her, and maybe that's what love is.


And between the computer and the wine, I totally have a headache. Ugh.

I feel like four days at my parents makes me incapable of anything other than sleeping, reading, or watching movies. I almost stayed an extra day because I didn't know what I would do with myself if I had to do anything other than divide my time between the brown leather recliner in the living room and the uncomfortable bed in my childhood bedroom. Well, that and the fact that I knew I'd left the apt a mess and didn't really want to deal with it. But, here I am, regarding the internet and, frankly, unsure what to do with myself. I'll probably go to sleep very soon.


Over the last two days I watched both of the PotC movies. Generally, I am bored by all parts of CotBP that don't involve Johnny Depp or Jack Davenport, but I found that this time through, I enjoyed almost all of it. Weird. Maybe the commercials helped. I also found that I liked DMC a bit more this time around-- I think knowing exactly how insanely long it was made it easier to get through. Plus, I knew that I should just tune out most of the racist island shennanigans, so I went to do laundry at that point. I still don't get where they're going with the Jack/Elizabeth thing because it clearly doesn't make sense as an ending, but whatever. Oh! And I managed not to go into a rage coma re: KK's hair, so that was probably a HUGE help.

Here's my question, though: I am not in Pirates fandom, but from reading my friends list, it seems that if one is in that fandom one must make a clearly defined choice between Jack or Norrington. Strangely, this seems to be true even for Jack/Norrington OTP types. To me, a casual watcher of the films, this seems rather absurd as I maintain that they are the only truly interesting, well-acted, and compelling characters in the movies (I like both Barbosa and Davy Jones, but they're the villians, so a) that's to be expected and b) they're not exactly "relatable" in any way). As far as I can tell, it seems that by declaring oneself in either the Jack or Norrington camp, one is declaring a fundamental worldview-- i.e., if you like Jack best, you disdain all law/are nobly fighting the Man and if you like Norrington best, you are upholding all that is right in the world/are the Man. (As you can probably tell, the way the worldview associated with each character is described also depends on which character you prefer.) I see this all over the place and I get very worried that the fact that I like both of them means that I have some sort of dangerous personality disorder.


For my mother's annual movie-in-a-theater viewing, we saw Casino Royale and as expected and predicted by everyone, I LOVED it. Passionately. The Bond girl was the best in AGES. Daniel Craig is hot like fire. The bad guy was vawes. Judi Dench is brilliant. The opening action sequence was PHENOMENAL. The only criticism I have was that it was probably a bit longer than necessary-- it had that RotK too-many-endings feel; if I were Jack Nicholson, I would have been out warming up the mini-van well before the damn thing was over.


Bizarrely, Stephen King has purchased the local classic rock radio station at home, so there are tons of ads trying to sell me weird merchandise for this station that has Halloween type drawings of spiders and Frankenstein on them. It was highly disconcerting. Which reminds me, EW did this profile a few weeks ago where Stephen King and the exec producers of Lost all spent an afternoon together. It was total Mutual Admiration Society and whatever, but the strangest part for me, was that they all went to the movies together and I know they went to the theater in Bangor (because that's the only option and because I've seen King there before) and so I could picture them all there in the unattractively painted theater with the excessive amount of video games paying 6 bucks for the movie or whatever. I don't know. It was weird to me, okay?


In conclusion, seriously? No snow at Christmas? Not on, Jake G., NOT ON.

Yesterday after my mad amazing table snatching skills got us a table at the Davis Starbucks (seriously, it was a coup-- those things are hard to come by), throughadoor and I had many interesting convos, but none so great as the one where we tried to figure out if the two girls by the fireplace talking about Radcake being in Equus were having a fan-date. I mean, really, what kind of regular person knows AND cares about a naked Radcake? So, if you were on a fandate at that Starbucks last night, we totally had your number and, as kel. said, we were totally laughing at you.


Today in the car on the quest to get snowboots, we were talking about Barbies (because the Scion we were driving is totally made from Barbie-car parts) and learned the following:
+imogenics didn't have Barbies, but she did have a Michael Jackson doll that she would sometimes take out not to play with, but just to contemplate.
+coquettemoves set up a Regency system for her Barbies.
+throughadoor, on the other hand, dressed her Barbies up like homeless people in outfits she made from Kleenex.
+ I set up what was essentially a sitcom (an apt. building full of wacky hijinks), a Barbie Friends if you will.

CSPAN noted, I think correctly, that this is probably VERY telling.

Also, we all (except the PM) went through a period where we were obsessed with strippers even though we may not have really understood what that meant. Interesting.


We spent a lot of time at Johnny Rockets talking about BSG (before we got into a tiff with the waitress and lost $20. grrrr...) and this is what we came up with: ( spoilery through the most recent ep )

kel. and the PM had a date with their new roommate to watch TTT on tv, which made us want to watch it too, so we are, the Extended Edition and it is AWES. I once again forgot about Eomer and OMG he is HOT and sincere and awesome and wow, is anyone cooler than the Rohirrim?


And in conclusion, Fat!Lee/Fat!Sean Astin = OTP of the new millenium.

I'm always up for an ego-stroke, but I've resisted so far. Until fox1013's A-Not!-nymeme. The usual "love" meme, sans anonymous-ness for those of us who can't pass the silly "not-a-robot" test. I'm here. Go, love me, love others, get loved, pretend people who need people are the luckiest people, etc.

Three Things with Which I am Currently Obsessed:

1. Rilo Kiley. I noticed the other day that CSPAN's copy of More Adventurous was sitting on the coffee table the other day and ripped it to my computer and added it to my iPod and then it's been nothing but Jenny's twittering little voice all week. Delightful!

2. Cookbooks. I've been to several bookstores over the last week and I keep finding all these amazing cookbooks I want. Most of the ones I have are just straight-up books of recipes, but I have a deep longing for a collection of really readable books, lush pictures of food not required, but definitely enjoyed.

3. Christmas. As usual. My holiday baking got a bit derailed this week by my tweaked back, but I think it'll get back on track tomorrow. I have my first Christmas party tomorrow and this weekend we're going to do some shopping. Plus! It's ice cold out and was flurrying all morning. eeeep! I've even combined this obsession with my perpetual obsession with ringtones by getting seasonal tones for my phone ("You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" for Christmas, and "Highway to the Danger Zone" for Kenny Loggins Day). Brilliant.

In other news, I had been TiNo-ing Studio 60, sort of looking at it and thinking there just wasn't enough Bradley Whitford to keep me going. But last night I sucked it up and caught up and I have to say that each ep was better than the next. It might finally become the show I was excited about when it was first announced. Sweet.

Tonight is Scissor Sisters. At Avalon. Hopefully it'll be better than the last time I saw a show there.

The "list 10 things you love that start with [insert letter]" meme is in play again and I love lists! But, that won't be on this list because moireach gave me 'T.' So:

T, the: It may kill me some day, but it only makes me late/leaves me stranded/overheats/breaks down on me/squeezes me in with strangers because it loves me. And, you know, since I don't drive, I would be completely screwed without it. Plus, T-riders discussing their hatred of the T = ENDLESS amusement for all involved.

Tim O'Brien: My very favoritest author of time and space. Everything I aspire to do as a writer, he does and he is emminently readable.

Tom Brady: The most wholesome man in America, the QB of my life, 3-time Superbowl winner. That's all I have to say about that.

Tremors: 1 - 3 and ESPECIALLY 4 where they go back in time for Tremors: the Legend Begins. Seriously BRILLIANT bad movie-making.

television: I really love this one. It may be low-brow, but I like tv better than movies, better than music, and sometimes even better than books. The very best that tv has to offer (The Wire) is comparable with the very best books out there. As a medium, it has so much potential. As an industry, it's only so/so, but I love the crap almost as much as I love the good stuff.

teen romance: Be it in book, tv, (emo) music, or film form, I am a SUCKER for teen romance. The intense highs of high-school love and the enjoyable lows of deep teen angst. I don't know why, but I will always take it any way I can get it.

Timberlake, Justin: I don't know how to quit him, man. My love may have waned a bit, but it's still pretty damn intense.

Trebuchet: My favorite font.

time travel: First and foremost, I love to get my mind completely wrapped up in the potential paradoxes and complications of time travel. As a creative/narrative choice, I like the ethics and philosophical questions re: changing the past and the way you can then envision a new future from any little change. If time travel were a reality, I think it would be incredibly awesome to see and experience different parts of the past, but the idea also terrifies me. Pretty much there's nothing I don't love about the concept.

tennis: Pretty much the only sport I actually like to play. Once, in high school, everyone magically got out of gym one day except me, so I got a private tennis lesson that consisted of hitting 100+ serves in 90+ degree weather. I had an awesome serve after that, but also, heat exhaustion. And yet, still I like tennis. Huh.

If you haven't done this yet and still need a letter, hit me up.

"If I [JAMES BROLIN] am right about this, the youth of America are pro-gay marriage."

Oh my. If the ad I saw on tv this evening didn't convince me that I am COMPLETELY EXCITED about Wedding Wars, this little article full of choice quotes like the one above totally did. It's randomly set in Maine, even!

Also, for more information, just Google "john stamos gay wedding." !!


I'm re-reading Whose Body? and I always forget how delightfully witty and fun Sayers is. Oh, Lord Peter.

Tonight's baking featured beer and butterscotch oatmeal bars which were seriously phenomenal.

I had an amazingly fun weekend and it SNOWED this morning and zombie!boss approached me about upgrading the wretch promotion for wretches, so I don't have to grow a pair and demand such things and all-in-all I am cozy and content and gloriously happy about pretty much everything.