Currently...(9)

"Currently..." updates will be every other Tuesday, concurrent with Katy Upperman.

I found the Currently post at Kate Hart's blog, who got the idea from Amy Lukavics, who found it here. Please join in and link me in the comments if you do!

I have A LOT of updating to do since I missed the regular update last week thanks to Comic Con exhaustion and the next one after thanks to some technical difficulties. So onwards!


Loving

• Spending time with friends, and making new friends - a lot of this thanks to Comic Con. This year, a group of us stayed at a hotel together, and in getting the group together, I met some cool new geeks.

My ConSquad - old friends + new friends.

Line friends! Including the handsome @mylifewithchrisevans! (Photo: mylifewithchrisevans)

• Obviously, Comic Con itself was a blast as well.

Squad goals achieved!

• Seeing Tom Hiddleston again this year. Eee! I've basically seen him live at least once for the past 3 years. It's kind of surreal and weird - but I'm not complaining! ;)

A video posted by Jennifer L. (@jennxlai) on Jul 20, 2015 at 8:00pm PDT

• The summer heat - I complain a lot about it being hot out, but it doesn't feel like summer to me unless it's somewhere near scorching. That's sunglasses, shorts, and sandals weather; tank tops and bright dresses, flip-flops and ice cream, swimming and BBQ time. And yes, the heat makes me lazy too, but it can also inspire the more nostalgic, romantic side of my brain - as evidenced in my newest little poem, Summer, salt-sweet.

Watching

ANT-MAN - Not gonna lie, my interest in this movie went from almost zero to 80 when Edgar Wright was attached to almost 0 again when he left. So I went into this with no real expectations and came out rather pleased with it! It's a very fun movie, lots of laughs.

At the same time, it really emphasized (for me, at least) how much women get sidelined or are otherwise used as mostly plot devices for other people in pop media at large. So, I liked the cast and enjoyed the movie a lot, and I liked Hope van Dyne, but in no other Marvel movie have I felt so strongly that a main female character was solely there to forward the story for other people while she herself was sidelined.

You can hear more of my thoughts on the movie in this podcast I did with Crazy4ComicCon and TOTL podcast!

HANNIBAL - Season 3 has been very different from the past 2 seasons, and as much as I adore the show's heightened reality and artsiness, it definitely got a little weird. Still, I love the show and its team, and I loved seeing them at Comic Con for perhaps the last time! Ballroom 20 was filled with flower crowns and Wendigos. Fannibals forever! ;_;


Also, this last episode on Saturday (the new time for the show, wtf NBC) introduced the Red Dragon story, and the show was back to its startling, arresting form.

TUT - Entertaining mini-series event on Spike about the brief rule of King Tut. This is sad, but I kept being impressed by the number of POC actors I saw on screen as main characters because sadly, most ancient Egyptian epics are egregiously white-washed. *cough*EXODUS, I'm looking at you.*cough*

THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY - This was extra special because my friend's company + the Sister worked on the social media and documentation of the Italian delegation for their first few days in Los Angeles. Check out this sweet video of Team Italy in their host town of West LA that they put together!


Reading

UNGODLY by Kendare Blake - So, thanks to my book fairy @Celeste_pewter of The Reading Nook Reviews, I have an ARC of the final book in Kendare Blake's Goddess Wars trilogy. I have been slowly dying from the cliffhanger she ended the last book on, so you can imagine my delight and terror when Celeste told me she snagged me a copy. (Terror because Kendare is hurts my favorites so much in these books...)

Beta Read - reading for a friend, and I am loving it so far. It's unlike what she usually writes but is still so good. Also, this friend is in fact Alz.


Listening to

YEARS AND YEARS - I'm obsessed with this album.


Thinking about

• How fun it was to meet a bunch of my favorite tweeps, writer-people, and geek girl bloggers at Comic Con. Basically, SDCC = magic.

Writer besties Sarah Maas & Susan Dennard a.k.a SARUSAN.

And their badass, cover-winning books.

Elizabeth Briggs, who has a book set at Comic Con because she is that cool, and I apparently remind her of 1 of her characters! Eep!

Natasha Heck, writer-tweep and Jedi, who I missed last SDCC, but we met this time! Next time, I'll see her when she's in costume.

Megan Gotch a.k.a. the Nerdy Girlie - one of the nicest geek girl bloggers around!

• Sleeeeeep. Even though it's been 2 weeks, I am still bone-tired from Comic Con.

Wishing

Much as I want the summer to linger, I also want to fast forward to October because I will be seeing HAMILTON on Broadway and I am so excited!! My love for it has not diminished since I saw it at The Public in February, and seeing the pics and continued buzz coming out of previews makes me so, so happy. Even better, I'll be seeing it with my besties!

Speaking of HAMILTON...


Making me happy

• I wanted to custom frame my HAMILTON Public playbill since February and I finally did it! LOVE the Annie Leibovitz shoot of the cast in VOGUE too.

• STAR WARS movie marathon - a few of our friends had not seen the Star Wars trilogies in their entirety (or at all), so we remedied this over 4th of July weekend. Actually, they watched 1 movie on July 2nd, and then we watched the other 5 on July 3rd. It was epic, and now they're ready for Episode 7 in December!

• SDCC MEMORIES

• Loki being Loki and the 4th of July - we ate BBQ, swam, watched fireworks and Star Wars, played with Loki and he threw his first (adorable) fit by lying down whenever I told him "bath time", and cheered the US Women's National Team to victory! Oh, and we took ridiculously patriotic photos. Because, of course.

How's life going with you?

P.P.S. Day by Day Comic Con recaps will be up at Girl On the Roam later this week!