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Jun. 6th, 2026 @ 08:09 pm
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Okay, now it's summer.
Got an enormous bag of spinach at the farmer's market this morning, contemplated having popsicles for lunch, and after dinner went for a walk down to the cemetery, got ice cream, and wandered over to the garden. A perfect 1.5-mile stroll. The spinach will be turned into palak paneer, I will once again have an opportunity for popsicle meals later this week, and my evening routine for the next three months is sorted. (Well, in future I will try to make it to the cemetery before they close the gates, although I did glimpse squirrels joyously converging on the now-deserted road through the graves, so at least I have learned a lesson about what happens in the cemetery at dusk.)
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Big Sky Country
Andy called this morning while on the road. They were, at the time, heading for Billings, Montana. Based on the things he didn't say, the drive hasn't been as smooth they hoped for, but that didn't surprise me. This was never going to be nearly the easy journey I know they hoped for. But they haven't been in a crash, and they haven't defenestrated each other out of a moving car.
And there were positive things. They spent an hour at Glacier National Park, and Andy took pictures of the sky as they traveled east. "It really is big sky country, he said, and I could hear just a bit of wonder in his voice as he said that. I predict that this time next year, when most of the boxes have been opened and their home looks and feels like a home, he and Emily will remember the wonder of Montana's sky, and consider the rest of first 36 hours worthy of being in anecdotes rather than giving them headaches.
I'm looking forward to more calls - at least two, before they hit Illinois. We'll see if my estimate is correct in a while.
I don't believe I've shared recent pictures of Harlan and Julian. Since Andy put this one up on Facebook recently, I'm happy to put it up here. Andy is a really good photographer of children, and it shows in this image.
Current Music: Stray Kids "Twilight" Current Mood:  amused Current Location: the home office
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Yesterday after I logged off work, I made a ricotta cheesecake, and since I know my springform pans are leaky (they are old and need to be replaced), I just used a deep dish pie plate, and it was fine. I also added about 2/3 cup of mini chocolate chips that the recipe did not call for, but which seemed necessary, though it is also a delicious cake without them (the cinnamon/orange/vanilla flavor is actually super Christmassy to me? but the heart wants what it wants, even if it's June rather than December). Also the vanilla bean paste gives it those little speckles which means it's even more delicious than usual! *g* Anyway, if you need a cheesecake but don't have a springform pan or a stand mixer, and don't want to deal with a water bath, this is the way to go.
Then today, I tried to make baked mozzarella sticks instead of fried - mainly because cleaning up after frying is a lot and also the smell lingers - but I didn't realize you are supposed to freeze them for TWO HOURS so I got a late start and didn't eat until almost 6:30. They were okay but not as wonderfully crisp as they get when fried, even though I used panko. Also, despite what some of these recipes say, you really should season every layer - the flour, the egg, and the breadcrumbs. I am just saying.
My plan for tomorrow is to make bacon so there's that for lunch for the week, along with some chicken pesto meatballs - we'll see how they are. I am apparently on a ground chicken kick, because I have a bunch of recipes I want to try, and as long as it keeps being on sale, I'm good to go!
In other news, the Knicks are up 2-0 on the Spurs and only TWO GAMES away from winning a chip! They've won 13 in a row in these playoffs! What even is happening??? MSG is going to be nuts on Monday. But remember, you absolutely do not have to hand it to James Dolan. #go new york go new york go
*Current Music: Bad Reputation - Freedy Johnston Current Mood:  satisfied
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Urgh
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Jun. 6th, 2026 @ 10:21 pm
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I hate how DNFing a book means I stop reading/wanting to read for some time afterwards. Like. What's up with that?! Just because one book is bad doesn't mean all books (or even comics) are bad. That's not how that works! That's not how any of this works!
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Title: The Analyst
Fandom: 御赐小仵 |The Imperial Coroner (2021)
Music: The Analyst by Delta Goodrem
Summary: 'she's always the analyst'
Notes: Premiered at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png) vidukon_cardiff 2026.
Warnings: flickering lights, mild gore, violence
AO3 | bsky | DW | tumblr | YouTube
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Title: Polar Night
Fandom: Due South
Rating: G
Length: 653
Author notes: Written for Challenge 517 – Flower
Summary: Dief earns his donuts ( Read: Polar Night )
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Finished Famesick by Lena Dunham, which I really.... enjoyed does not feel like the right word, because it is basically a memoir of getting chewed up and spit out by the fame machine at the same time as she was suffering from chronic health issues and struggling with substance abuse and she apparently just has godawful taste in and/or luck with men, but it is an engaging and - despite the heavy content - frequently funny read. Prominently features various celebrities who I'd say I was abstractly aware of as famous people who exist, but I found that this didn't necessarily change my opinion of, say, Jack Antonoff or Adam Driver— like, not in the sense that I don't credit Dunham's narrative, it's just that my brain did not really connect my indignation over Dunham's increasingly selfish/useless boyfriend to that guy from that band, or the coworker who sounds like a walking red flag (but, even in her own memoir a decade later, she seems more enamored with than put off by??) with that guy from that movie, etc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (Mostly, I think, because I didn't really have preexisting opinions about any of said famous people; I enjoy the music of both fun. and Bleachers, but 100% could not pick Antonoff out of a lineup of white guys in hipster glasses.)
Read Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper, technically a 1950 fictionalization of WWII's Operation Mincemeat— a deception operation to convince the Nazis that the Allies planned to invade Sardinia, not Sicily, by way of "secret" plans planted via dead British officer washing ashore in Spain; in recent years, the subject of a book, a movie, and a musical— although only the last ~20 pages (of 155) have anything to do with/map onto the story of Operation Mincemeat (which was still classified in 1950, although Cooper apparently learned of it from Churchill as dinner gossip and Ewen Montagu published his own account only a few years later). Instead, it is mostly the very bleak life story of one Captain William "Willie" Maryngton (barely filing the serial numbers off of Mincemeat's faked Major William Martin here), a born and bred soldier with the misfortune of being too young for WWI and too old to be shipped to the front in WWII, who finally achieves his life's goal of seeing "action" only after he dies of pneumonia and is used in a deception operation to convince the Nazis that etc. etc. Can't really put my finger on the tone, beyond bleak— the dialogue frequently has the gung-ho feel of a propaganda film, but I feel like there's kind of a cynical edge, overall? The most interesting character in this is actually Willie's foster brother Horatio "Horry" Osborne, the son of a military family who pursues his dreams of becoming an actor instead, but— after a lifetime of insisting that the Army wasn't "going to get [him] in their clutches"— immediately joins up when WWII breaks out, motivated by his "profound hatred of injustice and cruelty," and is almost as quickly killed in battle. (RIP Horry.)
It's interesting to compare what we know now about the IRL Operation Mincemeat to Cooper's fictional Operation Heartbreak: in the novel, Maryngton's death provides the operation with a ready-made cover story, vs. the real-life work that went into carefully constructing an identity, down to the pocket litter. (Although someone does still write a love letter to send off with him: in this case, the secretary who does so is the aforementioned Horry Osborne's younger sister! Who Willie has been in love with for years! And had in fact recently turned down his proposal!) On another interesting note, the afterword on the IRL Operation Mincemeat, written circa 2004, dismisses Glyndwr Michael— the "real" Major Martin, an unhoused man from Wales who died (whether intentionally or accidentally) from poison— as a possible identity for the body used, positing that "a postmortem might have discovered [his real cause of death] and the risk would have been too great." Happy to pass this along to anyone who'd like to read it, btw, otherwise it's going to local little free library.
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AO3 Link | Not In My Head (1211 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Babylon 5, Star Wars: The Clone Wars [2008] - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Characters: CT-7567 | Rex, Alfred Bester [Babylon 5]
Additional Tags: Crossover, Walk Into A Bar
Summary: Bester escaped the island, but ran afoul of something else taking him to the GFFA for better or worse.
Not In My Head
Escaping the island had been easy enough, ahead of the trap that the leader of the resistance was. He'd have to regroup, but the PsiCorps lived in him, would be the salvation of all in due time. Telepaths under strict rules, laying down the foundation of society for the others to live in? One way or another, that would be the reality of life, just as soon as Alfred Bester found his feet planted on solid ground again.
His mistake, though, was in thinking the galaxy as a whole was done throwing curve balls.
Maybe it was a remnant of the Shadow War. Maybe it had been a nascent threat brought fully to life from the Vorlon meddling in humanity. Either way, when Bester reached the coordinates he'd memorized from a very early memory of meeting the Director, it was not the haven he'd made himself believe it would be. His genetic code, delivered in a drop of blood, activated the technology without any hesitation.
The device that came up around him pushed through every shield he'd ever built more effortlessly than Ironheart could have done. What it saw and recorded rendered a judgment to his helpless mind, his body frozen, before triggering a random implosion of quantum events to shunt the catalyst of so much suffering into a time/place far from this one.
Captain Rex, formerly of the 212th, currently in command of the 501st without either of his Jedi for back-up did not like the look of the ridged ovoid with a panel missing. At least he had found the 'meteor' they had tracked before finally breaking the Separatist stranglehold on the system.
"You deserve a light mission. Just scout it out, figure out if it's a weapon, and then get the legion back up. Snips and I will handle this thing for Master Tiin and be right back."
The skepticism Rex had felt then was nothing like the bad feeling he now had. This thing had been occupied, based on the scans. And no one was visible.
"Jesse, get the unit formed up and prepped for return to the Resolute," he called over his comm. "My squad and I have a tracking task now."
"Yes sir, Captain." The man waited a beat, then continued on personal frequencies instead of the regimental one. "Keep yourself alive, little brother."
Rex snorted. Jesse liked throwing around that he was a very early decant, but it did help unwind Rex's nerves.
"Alright men, let's find where the being went, probably headed for that town over there. Light jog, eyes and ears out!"
Bester had staggered his way to what passed as civilization, felt more than understood an overpowering relief in the locals. They seemed human, but the language was not any of his. Fortunately, he could filter through minds swiftly, accommodating his needs nearly as fast as he'd acquired clothing that let him blend in better.
There were a few non-humans present, and those, he avoided. He'd paid enough attention to other species to know that telepathy came in varying degrees, that the senses of a human were considered disadvantaged by many, and that just lifting the language wasn't going to let him pass as a local.
The idea that there were many worlds, that technology was so far in advance of this particular place elsewhere, gave him a yearning to find such. Rifling more minds told him to stake out a cantina, and he should be able to find a pilot and ship… once the newer military that had run off the other military left the system.
The people he'd taken information from were skeptical that they hadn't just exchanged one yoke for another, and Bester wondered if he might do better by using his abilities on a member of the occupying army to get away from here.
There was a lot of frustration building in the back of Rex's mind as the locals were the most unhelpful sapient species he'd seen in quite a few systems. No one had seen anything strange, couldn't point to strange arrivals, or anything… outside of making back-handed mentions of the G.A.R. troops.
It was enough to make him wonder why they even bothered to break places like this out of Seppie control.
"Alright, we're going over to that cantina, and I have enough credits to get us all one drink," Rex told the four men with him. "Nurse it, listen, and if you do start talking, try to keep it nice and calm. They don't seem to like us any better than their former occupiers, but we have to know who was in that pod, in case it's a bio-weapon or something else the Seppies dreamed up."
He passed out the currency that General Kenobi had put in his keeping for discretionary maneuvers, and they headed to the building with live music and plenty of people to scout for their objective. Rex had to believe that the discipline would hold up, that there wouldn't be any fights with the locals.
None of his men would embarrass him to the General or Commander that way, after all.
Fate was smiling, if Bester was willing to believe in such mysticism. Five of the soldiers, wearing armor with blue markings against the white, all of it heavily scarred by the war they were a part of. A cursory search of the four that had shifted out among the patrons of this dive told him their purpose. They were seeking him, thinking him to be a potential threat.
The one who had stayed at the bar was the officer. That was the one Bester needed. He would not go into the introduction without understanding that one intently, and he prepared to slice through the man's experiences to best craft the story he would use to insinuate himself near something like a power, to begin pursuing his dreams in this far away place, away from Vorlon manipulations and Shadow plots.
Rex had survived having Asajj Ventress in his head, controlling him, and managed to still find a way to warn his Jedi that he'd been compromised. There might not have been a real reason for him to realize he wasn't alone in his head this time; whomever it was wasn't the witch, holding him against a wall by his throat after all.
But he did know. More, he knew where the source was.
Maybe it was working hand in hand with Anakin Skywalker so much, or honing his instincts to keep track of the padawan-commander.
Either way, his blaster was in his hand and he was turning before that intrusion caught the intent.
One clean shot, and the stranger — looked human — slumped at the table he'd been keeping between him and the world.
"Sorry for the mess," Rex said quickly, and put the last of the credits on the bar, as his people moved to acquire the body.
Turned out, with the body not belonging to a local, they didn't care all that much about the stranger's fate, leaving the G.A.R. men to do as they wished.
Rex decided they'd recover the ovoid, put the body in stasis, and turn it all over to the Jedi when they got back to puzzle it out.
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It was an interesting moment just now, as I transitioned between two ways of using my hands. Because I was, a few moments ago, helping adjust the feet on Tuesday's shelf unit she's putting up, hard biting plastic that barely turns, needing help from wrench and then still feeling the edges dig into my fingertips with every turn.
And then that's properly set, and so I return to my knitting for a moment, and the yarn is suddenly so soft against me. It feels beautiful and kind and startling. I do not usually feel like I get to feel things that are soft like that.
I like it. It's probably not actually any kind of metaphor, but I still like it.
(note to self: sometime when you're back in Boston, properly write up the definitely-a-metaphor post about your doctor who scarf that's been percolating for months now.)
~Sor
MOOP!
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I had a medical procedure scheduled for this past week, but I was uncertain whether it would be able to go forward because of my cough. If the anaesthesiologist said the cough was too severe, it would be canceled.
Accordingly, my priority this past week was quiet and rest, trying to get my cough to calm down. Annoyingly, the air quality in the Twin Cities remained problematic, so I couldn't sit outside on my porch.
So I stayed behind shut doors, near my air filters. I took showers with shower bombs infused with peppermint and eucalyptus. I drank oceans of tea to try to calm my coughing. I ate cough drops until I was sick of the taste. I curtailed my exercise.
I simply rested.
(My efforts were successful and I underwent the procedure last Thursday. I was recovering yesterday, which is why this collage is a day late.)
Image description: A door is ajar at night. Light outlines the crack, but the opposite of the door is a field of stars. An owl at rest sits peacefully in the lower left corner, eyes closed. Upper left corner: a blooming white poppy (signifying rest) with a glowing full moon shining at its center.
Quiet
Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.Current Mood:  peaceful
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Reading: On the fiction front, over the last couple of weeks I read:
--Remember You Will Die (Eden Robins), which is SF told entirely through news and obits and correspondence and does some very neat things. It didn't give me any particular feelings, but I enjoyed it.
--The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (Shannon Chakraborty), which is pretty much a delight from start to finish.
--The Book of Love (Kelly Link) unfolds in all kinds of interesting ways and had a lot of...emotional momentum?...for me, although I didn't come away with deep feelings about or attachment to any of the characters.
--The Everlasting (Alix E. Harrow), which I finished a few days ago and have seen several people discussing since (probably because it's up for a Hugo). I liked it more than some of you did, but didn't love it.
I haven't started another novel(la) since. After talking to Kas (who's most of the way through the series-so-far) last weekend, I went ahead and put the second Dungeon Crawler Carl on hold, and somehow my brain seems to think that's what I'm going to read next, which is awkward given that I don't expect it to arrive in the super near future.
On the nonfiction front, I read a bit more of Braiding Sweetgrass, flipped through some gardening books, and started rereading Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace in hard copy (I read it in ebook almost exactly a year ago). I really like the feel and the spirit of this, and it's packed full of information that flows in a way that makes it hard for me to actually retain a lot of said information. I picked up the hard copy from Book Outlet in hopes that having a physical book would give me better odds of actually being able to usefully refer to bit of it.
Watching: Some more of both Justice in the Dark and Witch Hat Atelier.
Growing: Yesterday we acquired and planted five tomato seedlings (and a few other seedlings that still need planting). More on that in another post later, hopefully.Current Mood:  hungry
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Between the "30 days of Blake's 7" meme I was doing on DreamWidth and the subsequent outbreak of fanfic (currently about 10,000 words and end in sight), I have been somewhat immersed in Blake's 7 even before I went to do a bit of research on Hermit for said fanfic this morning and wandered off into the con reports. This probably explains why when I went to Co-Op this afternoon and their in-house radio started playing The Beautiful South's "Don't marry her, have me", I was immediately taken back to the first time I heard that song - as a Blake's 7 filk at Redemption 99. It was very funny then, and having just looked it up on the con reports page it's still funny now. I've been feeling rather melancholy the last few weeks. February or March marked 30 years since I went to my first con. It was Neutral Zone in Newcastle, a multimedia con by the local Star Trek fan group, and I went because Gareth Thomas was a guest. I had a lot of fun, so I went to another one, the first Discworld con. And then the last Who's 7, and since then I've gone to at least one con every year. I wrote B7 con reports and theatre trip reports back then. _Detailed_ reports. And I'm so glad I did, because although I wrote them for other fans who couldn't be there, now they're for me. 20, 25, 30 years on, I can read them and be taken back to that time when we were all young. All the people I met and made friends with. Fannish networks change and we lose contact. We move on, from Usenet and mailing lists to LiveJournal and Twitter, and Tumbler, to other fandoms, and, and... People drift away, and sadly some of them have died now. It's ten years since Gareth died, eleven since we lost Pterry. But I still have online links with so many of those friends of long ago, and if there is ever another Redemption I will be there.
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The Way of Ressiliencce (1277 words) by CinnamonBunWrites
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jedi Master Character(s) & Jedi Padawan Character(s), Clone Troopers & Jedi Characters (Star Wars)
Characters: Lissarkh (Star Wars), the only canon character in this fic, Original Jedi Character(s) (Star Wars), Original Clone Trooper Character(s) (Star Wars)
Additional Tags: Jedi are space Buddhists and you cannot change my mind, Pro Jedi, jedi order, a mix of legends and canon lore, Philosophy, Martial Arts, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, no beta we die like the Republic, canon is an orchard and I am baking a single pie, Oneshot, Jedi June Appreciation Event 2026, Jedi as Found Family (Star Wars), Clone Troopers and Jedi as Found Family (Star Wars), Jedi Training (Star Wars), Jedi Culture & Customs (Star Wars), Editing what editing
Summary: Week 1 Prompt: Resilience
Knight Lissarkh starts a demonstration Soresu for her Padawan learner, discussing its philosophy, and ends up with more than one student.
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Currently on writing retreat at Union Pier in Michigan, and am utterly charmed at the concept of rain in June. Rain! In June! No wonder these trees are such a deep, deep green!
Little actual writing done as I've been laboring at Worldcon tasks, specifically the tetris of scheduling the writing panels. All zillion of them--which means juggling participants whose schedules might clash with times and places. Not a thing I am good at, whew, not at all.
Today I hope to get some actual writing done. So close to finishing off a piece, so close, the images swim in my mind.
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Like many, Anthony Stewart Head - ASH, as we often referred to him in our reviews at the time - first came to my fannish attention as Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer . There were two more roles that immediately come to my mind when thinking of him - not that I haven't seen him in more, but these are the ones that are staying with me - the villain, Mr. Finch, in the Doctor Who episode School Reunion, and Uther Pendragon in the BBC series Merlin. You could call Uther the anti-Giles in some ways: the father and mentor figure who while loving his children (and being willing to die for them) messes them up in a very Philip Larkin way, absolutely unwilling (most of the time) to accept responsibility for his own deeds and looking for scapegoats instead . And yet charismatic enough to evoke loyalty in many people, and vulnerable enough that one usually pitied Uther even when despising him. Merlin was a show primarily aimed at a young audience, but ASH never gave anything but a three dimensional, complicated performance.
As for Giles. He once said, joking or otherwise, that he originally started out with the persona Hugh Grant embodied in 1990s rom-coms as a basis, and you can see that especially in the early episodes, but it quickly became so much more. Not least because having this particular actor to write for meant that Giles got fleshed out in terms of backstory ("Ripper", and of course ASH's trained voice as a singer was used in later seasons) and participation in the overall narrative beyond delivering exposition. He had both expert comic timing (see also the episodes in which Giles gets to be his teenage self, or ends up transformed into a demon), and a wonderful ability for character drama even without using his voice - I'm m thinking of Giles' expression when it turns out Buffy kept the fact Angel is among the (un)living again from him. Or, to put it as unspoilery as possible, his final scene with Ben in season 6. His mentor scenes with Buffy (and on occasion some of the other Scoobies) could be incredibly tender - the s2 scene in Innocence in which Giles comforts Buffy in the car is one of the most memorable among many memorable Buffy and Giles scenes - and the wry, deadpan wit the writers gave him starting a few episodes in was more than a match for Scooby quippiness. For all this, he was never presented as perfect; in the big s3 episode which will end up with Giles choosing Buffy over the Council, he first starts out by following instructions that include drugging and manipulating a girl who trusts him. Speaking of s3, he could have done more for Faith before her fall, to put it mildly, and I'm with Joyce in her cold fury once she figures out Giles' role in her daughter's life and the fact he not just supported but encouraged Buffy keeping the whole Slayer saga from her. Giles being so very human meant that he didn't always get it right any more than the other characters. But he still was the mentor all of them wanted to have. And most of fandom, too, I dare say.
72 years isn't "young" anymore but in this day and age, it's no longer old, and too soon to die. But any time would have been too soon for this actor who gave me so much fannish joy for many years. Thank you, ASH. Thank you so much!Current Mood:  sad Current Location: Bamberg
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Previous poll reviews
In the Space poll, 44.7% went with Douglas Adams ("that's just peanuts to space"), and the other options were pretty evenly split. Books came second to hugs, 57.4% to 70.2%.
In the Legacy media poll, 82.8% of respondents have a lot of DVDs and access to a DVD or Blu-ray player. Far fewer have cassetts or VHS tapes, and there's only one other person who has Super8/MiniDVD/etc tapes. *high fives* "At this point, it's just a lot of old stuff, help!" garnered 31%. Thank you for your votes! ♥
Reading
A little more Cetaganda (Bujold, narrated by Grover Gardner), and that's all. I haven't even started the little Chinese grammar book I bought for 99 cents. *hides* (It's not that I don't want to; my attention span is currently not conducive to sitting down and doing one thing.)
Kdramas/Cdramas
I finished To My Beloved Thief, which had a slightly draggy ending, but was otherwise a delight. Historical magic realism ftw! It made me want to rewatch the old Hong sisters' version of the Hong Gil-dong story, too (unfortunately, not available in streaming).
Also finished Absolute Value of Romance, which spoilernavigated between the ending I didn't want (teacher/student romance), and the ending I craved (teacher is gay) to find a slightly unsatisfying middle ground. I don't know if Ga Woo-Su was actually oblivious to Ui-Ju's love confession or just ignoring it to avoid the awkwardness of rejecting her outright, but an unnecessary childhood connection and significant "first snow" moment kind of point to them getting together in the future, when a) that would still be completely inappropriate and jeopardise his teaching career, AND b) Ga Woo-Su has previously shown no sign of interest in her at all (imo). He and Yoon Dong-Ju are obviously boyfriends or pining for each other! Why on earth else would he have reacted so weirdly to being the second lead in Ui-Ju's webnovel? (Which, btw, was wildly inappropriate.) Someone please write me slash for this!! (Note to self: tag this post for Yuletide.)
So now, in solo-watching, I've started episode 1 of Hong Gil Dong on my phone (ie, on my exercise machine), and gone back to The Spirealm (fantasy horror Cdrama) when I'm in front of the TV.
We're still watching Miraculous Brothers (contemporary thriller, time travel) with a friend at a rate of two episodes per week. The central character is a hot mess with no moral compass but somehow likeable enough that I'm engaged, and the mystery built around a cold case is pretty cool. I'd put it in the same category as Glitch and Sisyphus. Hopefully it will delve into the scifi/supernatural aspects more at some point.
Pru came over for some Love Scout, and even with our erratic viewing schedule, it's completely swoony and great. I think once we're done I'm going to zoom through it again by myself.
Andrew and I watched two episodes of The Story of Pearl Girl (Netflix Cdrama), but the acting is too melodramatic for him, and I want some humour in my shows, so I think we're calling it.
Other TV
We're halfway through the first season of Italian drama Blocco 181, which I heard about on polyamships. It contains a trope I find super stressful to wit:leading characters steal drugs from drug dealers, argh,
Finished season 1 of Scottish sitcom Dinosaur, about an autistic woman and her newly engaged sister. It's not laugh-out-loud, but I really like it and am looking forward to season 2.
A bit more Night Train with Wyatt Cenac on Youtube. Vaguely looking around for a new show, preferably English-language.
Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, Cross Party Lines, and approximately a billion newbie lessons of ChinesePod. (I feel like I'm fiddling while Rome burns, but oh well.)
Writing/making things
This fic is never going to end. I don't even know why I'm writing it anymore. Maybe when we get to fan_flashworks' amnesty round I'll get some momentum back? /o\
Life/health/mental state things
Messing around with storage and sorting out stuff. Biking a lot. Battling brain weasels at night. I'm in my mid-fifties, and I don't know what I'm doing with my life. My arms are hanging in there, just.
Language Learning
I've been posting Chinese practice sentences, vocab, and occasional observations to china_shops_kjnl; feel free to follow. * The fact that I can parrot phrases from the podcast into Google Translate and it mostly comes out with the right characters/meaning still feels like magic. * I'm not learning enough characters. (I don't really know how to learn them except through Duolingo? Possibly ChinesePod's character course?) * I have little previous exposure to gamificiation, ergo no immunity, so Duolingo had eaten a big chunk of my life -- and would be gobbling more if my arms were up for it. (Stylus has arrived; shorter than I expected, but a vast improvement over fingers. I might get another, full-size one.) But I think the podcasts are better for listening and pronunciation anyway.
Goals
1. Sort out my stuff. Throw some of it away. (Do I want to start in on my books/DVDs? /o\)
2. Learn enough Chinese characters that I can read a graded reader.
3. Get started on the project of replacing my ancient gas oven with an induction hob/electric one.
Good things
Making sentences in a new language is really satisfying, and I love noticing grammar patterns and looking them up to see how they work. Podcasts generally. TV-watching-with friends. Walk in the bird sanctuary in the not-quite-rain. Good biking weather forecast for this week. Guardian and the Dreamwidth corner of Guardian fandom. *loves*
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39 I estimate my fiction reading speed as
View Answersfaster than average
20 (51.3%) average
8 (20.5%) slower than average
3 (7.7%) it would be faster if my so-called attention span didn't keep dropping out
9 (23.1%) depends on the language (I read fluently in more than one language)
5 (12.8%) other
1 (2.6%) ticky-box of 我喜欢在家里休息 (I like to rest at home)
14 (35.9%) ticky-box full of ever more elaborate breakfasts
11 (28.2%) ticky-box of a raindrop sliding down a glossy green leaf
16 (41.0%) ticky-box full of stripes waiting for a cat
14 (35.9%) ticky-box full of hugs
24 (61.5%)
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disappointed
hopeful