corbae | Reading

With Escapade panels going live this Solstice, it gives me room to plan about planning - I've made sure I don't have anything scheduled for this coming Wednesday, for example, so I expect that's when most of it's going to be happening. I'm hosting the Andor panel, so I'll start going through a few Tumblr and Dreamwidth accounts for meta posts, collecting conversation starters, and ask for help making slides if need be.

Much as I'm not looking forward to Tuesday, I'm very much looking forward to Tuesday night and having survived it. Hopefully it'll only be a long day in terms of hours.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: nothing now

settiai

For the record, it's definitely possible to get a sunburn in less than ten minutes. As the top of my buzzed head can confirm.

I walked to a nearby shopping center yesterday to run some errands, which is something like a 7-8 minute walk away, and I didn't think anything of it despite it being miserably hot because of the humidity. At least, not until last night, when I realized that I had a noticeable sunburn on my head from that walk.

Oops?

Current Mood: frustrated

seekingferret

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

There has to be a word for the literary technique where you have a section of the book that doesn't work- it's boring, or unsatisfying, or implausible, or mis-paced- but its presence makes a later part of the book land harder. Part IV of Some Desperate Glory doesn't work for me- it asks you to suddenly find empathy for characters it hasn't invested time in developing, it rushes to the action scene and then works through the action scene in a way that is inconsistent with the rest of the book. But then you get back to the characters you care about in Part V and everything is amplified and hits so fucking hard, because of Part IV. It's an incredible ending and a really neat structural achievement.

hannah

Leaving Brooklyn this afternoon, I saw billowing, towering stormclouds out to the west, slowly coming over and in. I took a couple pictures and went on my way, cursing this to be one of the rare days I went out without an umbrella and understanding that I was going home and if I got wet, no harm done. Even if they looked particularly ominous. Not even any texture to them: flat, hard gray, weighing so heavy the sky moved around them.

At the transfer point in Manhattan, I saw a lot of shaken umbrellas and one spot over the tracks - just one - where the water was coming through hard and steady. A singular two-foot rainfall.

When I got out at my stop and saw all the slick flooring just before the steps out, I was pretty well ready to speed back to spend as little time in the rain as I could, except then I saw two people walking down the steps, totally dry.

The time it took me to get to Manhattan was long enough for the storm to move on. I missed it entirely. Not the ecstatic greens and blues that come after a storm, the clarity of color that arrives; I didn't miss out on any of that. Just the storm that made it possible.

What timing.

Current Music: Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying - Labi Siffre

cimorene

Wow, the author of this fanfiction fully does not realize how fountain pens work at all. Which is fine: all you had to do was not touch on how the pen worked and nobody would have noticed! Or you could've looked it up.

Or anything other than describing red ink writing that was done with a fountain pen as "a red fountain pen".

Bonus info: fountain pen ink dries up in the pen, which can ruin it if you're not lucky, if it lies unused for long enough (how long to dry up depends on the pen, and it's longer if stored point-down, but it can be as little as less than a week; it takes longer than that to ruin a pen, though). Fountain pen ink in the bottle also degrades over time. It can spoil or grow micro organisms and also can break down chemically, but evaporation is perhaps the biggest risk. The hobbyist sphere seems to agree that typical shelf life is "ten to sixty years" (optimally: in glass, sealed as airtight as possible, protected from heat and light and no contaminants introduced), so it's not impossible you could still use ink from a bottle from the 1940s, but it's highly unlikely.

cimorene

I ran out of OTC antihistamines last week (loratidine) and it's getting a bit uncomfortable. I went over the bedroom floor with a static dust cloth but I can still smell dust in there especially, and it's maddening. I don't usually have this problem in there, and it's not like I'm usually great at dusting, so idk what changed— sinuses just annoyed by going so long without relief? I could have walked to the pharmacy on any weekday, but I don't like to contemplate more than one intimidating task at a time.

There are also flowers now (though I don't think I'm allergic to pollen probably, or not much), although I wish there were more of them. Some of our tulips are finished, and the cowslips, and the last of the daffodils, but the daylilies are opening and forget-me-nots and veronicas are open. A foxglove came back this year - in the same corner where there was one before, so it must've been planted by the old lady who owned this house at least fifteen years ago and planted so many perennials; but apparently it's biennial, so this is a descendant of the one we last saw four years ago perhaps. Possibly we should plant some more there to give them a better chance of continuing to self-seed. Also the striped tulips from the bag of 100 bulbs we planted two years ago are just at the end of their lives, and they're so cool. There are only four of them, and we would love to have more, maybe a whole bed, but I can't figure out what variety they are. I was comparing pictures at the nursery where we bought the bulbs, but they don't look quite right. They sort of look like Tulipa "Hemisphere" based on a web search, and that's a Triumph variety. (Nursery website doesn't list those, but they might not have sold them last year?)

Kind of close shot of a striated red and white tulip in our yard

hannah

Of late, I've tried to derive some entertainment value of sitting and waiting for people to stop talking so I don't interrupt them because that's about the only way to get through it with any composure. There's people I've met who can go for long minutes without giving me any indications they want me to talk. I'm tempted to see if raising my hand does anything, or getting up and moving.

I know I could theoretically interrupt them, but every person who has this trait would have to be yelled at for them to hear me talking. Though now I'm also tempted to try to just start talking in a normal volume, ignoring everything they're saying, just to see that reaction.

Current Mood: stressed
Current Music: nothing now

cimorene

I have an appointment with the private doctor to get the driving fitness certificate now. In theory we expect it to go smoothly from this point (apart from the unfair fact that I have to pay an extra hundred-something euros for this dubiously-useful medical certificate, but that isn't a logistical problem), and I can start driving lessons the week after next.

settiai

I've gotta admit, I didn't see that coming. Darrington Press, which is the publishing company that Critical Role started a few years ago, just announced that Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford have joined the team.

For those unfamiliar, they're both well-known names in D&D who left Wizards of the Coast a few months ago. So it's a pretty big deal that's where they ended up after jumping ship.

Current Mood: surprised

cimorene

Last week Wax and I both noticed a low, constant noise coming from the toaster. Sort of high insect humming? This toaster was Wax's mom's and we've been using it since our last toaster broke shortly after her mom died (2020?), but I think her mom had it for quite a long time (2016ish?). It's definitely pretty old for a toaster, so I guess it retires honorably.

We've bought several toasters that broke very suddenly after comparatively short lives before. I went through a period when Smeg appliances started appearing more on social media of wanting one of theirs, though never enough to have paid as much as they cost; but then I read a bunch of reviews of them and concluded they're totally not worth it. And we definitely are not intensive enough toast users to justify the cost of a professional one. I resent the unnecessary ugliness of basic appliances though! There's no reason they couldn't all be reasonably cute, instead of half of them looking like they're trying to blend in on the men's hygiene aisle!

The other night I dreamed we were baking a coffee-flavored layer cake with chocolate icing. I told Wax, and yesterday she made a boiled chocolate cake with half the chocolate replaced with espresso, with 70% dark ganache instead of icing. It came out denser than usual, each of the layers only a few cm high after baking, but it did cook all the way through. Eating a piece is a bit like eating chocolate cake, and a bit like eating a handmade chocolate truffle.

We still haven't managed to take a walk yet on any day that didn't already require an emergency trip to the store in the last... month? Our goal remains walking together every day weather permits, and we continue to not make progress. Forming habits is very hard for people with ADHD, but it's quite frustrating.

turps

It was Kayleigh and Lucy's wedding anniversary on Saturday, so I've been on cat and tortoise watching duty while they've had a weekend away at a fancy spa hotel. They're back today though, so the last cat visit will be this morning.

They've also decided to get two new kittens. I suspected they'd get another cat after losing Aeriel, but not this soon and certainly not two of them. Thankfully, they're not arriving until the end of the month, so my pet sitting duties have been pretty simple.

James starts his annual leave today, so between that and his usual days off he's not back at work for a fortnight. We can't afford to go away this year, but will be having day trips out on some of the days.

Over the weekend, we saw How to Train Your Dragon, which I enjoyed. Went for walks at the country park, the beach, and yesterday, Beamish again. Though, yet again the place was really busy, so once we'd done our walk we just left, going against the tide as many many more people were queuing to get in. Even the staff were surprised how busy it was, but I guess between it being a lovely sunny day and Father's Day, people just wanted to go somewhere nice.

Pauline invited us to tea, so we'll be going there later. First though, it's class this morning, the first one for a fortnight. As it's getting warm already, I suspect I'll be scooping my sweaty self off the floor once it's finished. Then, after class finishes, we both have a check in and weigh on Rosie's fancy scales. It's unofficial as we've both technically graduated the programme, but it'll be nice to see where we're at and have a talk.

I mentioned we had a beach walk, well, it was a cold, foggy day that day, but that meant the dolphins came into Roker bay. I stood watching them for ages, there was such a big pod, and they only left when word must have got out and lots of boats came into the bay. ( a couple of photos )

hannah

The day's plans of meeting a friend of a friend and seeing a Broadway show were scuttled by the star of the show having to back out at the last minute due to a small injury. As the friend of a friend had come to the city to see Orville Peck more than he'd come to see Cabaret, we decided that he'd be better off refunding the tickets.

I knew the neighborhood a little bit, so I took us four blocks north and one block west to go from the city people visit to the city people live in, going from having a bite and some coffee at a tourist destination to doing the same at a local coffee and sandwich place. He ordered a gabagool sandwich and a pink iced chai latte, and I just had a pink latte. Afterwards, we went to a record store and he found a vinyl Ney Matogrosso album, which was a surprise because he's apparently hard to find in the US on pretty much any format, but especially vinyl.

Not long after, we went our separate ways, him to Brooklyn and the friends he was staying with and me to my apartment to finish folding laundry and cook some lunches for the coming week. I could fixate on the misfortune, or I could look at how we managed to made the best of things.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Half Acre - Hem

settiai

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Current Mood: tired

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corbae

October 2022

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Page generated Jun. 29th, 2025 09:44 am

I was a saint; I wed the breaking dawn

I've seen the darkness take you down with it, Mama - Let it rise

Reading

Daylight hours.

/o\

(no subject)

Downpours.

"Are you reading fanfiction and critiquing its pen portrayal?" Yes

I guess flowers could be contributing as well

Strategies.

driving-related questions settled

Darrington Press

no toaster could match the one from technology connections anyway

(no subject)

Carrying this scrap of paper.

Titansfall D&D: Summary for 6/15 Game

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October 2022

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