Oof, yesterday turned out to be A Day, almost entirely due to my apparently not taking care of myself so I’m coming here to write a sternly worded letter to my brain, which I’ll ( cut since it’s not very exciting for the rest of you. )

Still here, still employed at the crazy place of business, still unpacking the house. (I’m finally getting sort of close on the last one)

I disappeared b/c we did a family trip to Disney World where we really did all of the parks. I know we go all the time but mostly we’re just hanging out with friends or hitting maybe one park. This was full-tilt, hitting all the new rides and snacking our way through the day. It was a ton of fun but holy crap was it hot. Just ridiculous, close to 100 degrees (F) every day. Our next trip like this will be in the dead of winter, no joke.

So, yeah, I was scrambling there at the end to get my schedule clear at the office and get things set up at the house for our sweet friend who comes and stays with the berserker dog (he looooooves her, and she spoils him outrageously so it’s like he has a mini staycation, too)

And then I’ve contracted what is essentially con crud from the gazillion people I was around (I’ve tested negative for everything, but I’m hacking and sneezing and sound like I’ve been smoking two packs a day for my entire life.) I took a day of sick leave and somehow decided I should wash the slipcovers on my living room furniture, so that’s been A Thing.

Also, I managed to smash my phone pretty thoroughly while dealing with all the Disney app stuff so I had to go get a new one (it was more than 4 years old & wasn’t really holding much of a charge so I didn’t feel too spendy about it.)

And now, there’s weirdness happening with the thermostat attached to the AC/furnace and the transmission is dying on my car so it’s definitely back to normal life after our sojourn in the Disney bubble, sigh. At least tomorrow is Friday though we’re starting a new work book club & Amazon says my book was delivered while we were away (with pictures and all) but I have yet to unearth it so I should go do that in order to have a good base for my irritation that we are yet again reading a tech bro book rather than just assuming it’s going to irritate the fuck out of me just on sight.


Also, also, here’s my entry in the what-fic-trope-are-you** questionaire:

fix-it

you don't have time for this 'making your barbies kiss' bullshit; the world is fucked, and you're here to do something about it! (the thing you're doing about it is making your barbies kiss)


**my memory is a little iffy here but I’m sure you’ve seen this around

Of course the only thing that’s broken my fascination with the utter disaster that is the British royal family’s PR "strategy" (please see the comprehensive timeline at the bottom of this article) would be my beloved Sparkly Dancing Boys (who I freely acknowledge are not too sparkly, not dancing a whole lot, and are no longer boys, but once an SDB, always an SDB) ON STAGE TOGETHER.

(I do have thoughts, like that Lance looks fabulous, and that somebody needs to persuade JC to shave (and to not do whatever it is that he’s doing with his hair these days), and that it’s terribly convenient timing for this to happen after Timberlake decided to demonstrate just how far he could shove his head up his ass when talking about Britney, but mostly my brain is just shrieking and twirling with GLEEEEEE.)

(Also, my Millennial & GenZ coworkers seem convinced that a Vegas residency is in the cards so that’s a thing in my brain, too.)

Hi, hello, good morning!

I have to be at the office today and my hair is still wringing wet and it’s trash day and I don’t have anything out to the curb yet and all is chaos, but hey, Happy Pączki Day!

I could not make the journey out to the sole Polish bakery in all of Northern Georgia, but Publix came through and while they’re not the greatest of jelly donuts, they fit the bill and I miiiiiight be on a sugar high.

The weather was wild last night, very windy and the trees were dropping branches like crazy. I think one of my cheap plastic chairs got taken out but I don’t think had any roof damage, fingers crossed.

That’s all that’s happening here; I’m gonna go dry my hair and take the trash out And try to de-cortisol my body before I have to drive into the city.

Happy Fat Tuesday to you all!

Hello and happy Friday! I have fixed a cocktail and put my feet up and am ready to let the weekend begin.

The first week of return to office has been checked off the list, yay. The new office is actually really nice and I feel like I can find enough places to work that are quiet and tucked out of the way, but it’s still more than a little annoying to have to go in. I’m trying to keep in mind how much baby!engineer!topaz wanted to work in “the city“ and have a fancy office. I’d really like to have a private office rather than just a desk that I have to reserve every time I go in , but the rest of it is all there. And they feed us. I’m trying to focus on all the good things about this change.

I also can’t believe that we’ve gotten through January. I’m usually deep in the throes of hating the world at this point, but it’s been a pretty chill month. I’ve leaned hard into candles and twinkly lights and generally wrapping up in quilts and what not, and that seems to have done the trick, at least so far. (see above, re: cocktail in hand). Speaking of candles, I found the box of my stash, and have been running a candle spa the last few days. We’ve put new wicks in where necessary, and fixed up the tunneling issues and sorted them all by fragrance profile. I feel very accomplished .

At some point, I need to collect up all the random, wonderful fic recommendations I’ve been accumulating and share them out. I’m still not at the point of being able to write but once again fandom has provided so much wonderful distraction and the very least I can do is share them with you all. Maybe this weekend?

::kisses::

I have to be in Midtown this week for an offsite, work-related thing that starts at the ungodly hour of 8 AM (which I am so not happy about) so I’ve been getting up early so I can fall asleep early enough that I’m not completely wiped out when I have to leave my house a little after 7 to arrive in a timely fashion and launch into my best extrovert cosplay. Oddly enough, the best part about all of this is that I’m out in the living room before sunrise (because if I stay in the bedroom, I’ll just go right back to sleep) and I’ve been watching the day lighten as I have my first Diet Coke and go through all my feeds. The windows in the living room face southwest-ish so I don’t actually get to see the sunrise per se, but I do get to see the sky lighten around the tree branches of the woods at the back of our property. I’d still rather be asleep but it’s not a bad way to start the day.

I did finally get all the holiday decorations packed and properly returned to their storage area, which I also cleaned out with the help of BabyBoy. Yay? If I didn’t have to go pick up some packages I accidentally had sent to L’s, I might actually get the last of the boxes from the reno out of the living room. Regardless of the exact timing, though, the end (at least for this room) is in sight. That’s really a yay!

In other random work-related news, we move into our new office tomorrow and we have to start going in a couple days a week. They’re dangling all sorts of goodies (with middling success) in front of us to make the RTO order policy seem less heavy-handed, one of which is an on-site barista. I don’t actually drink coffee (hence the pre-dawn Diet Cokes), but far be it from me to not take advantage of a perk so I’ve been trying out various tea options. My favorite so far is a London fog (Earl Grey tea plus steamed milk) but I’m accepting suggestions so please tell me all about your favorite fancy tea drinks. ♥

The Tuesday after a three-day weekend is always a slog but I think this Tuesday is the worst of the worst… You’re barely back focusing from having a couple weeks off over the holidays and then you get a three-day weekend and I swear my brain just forgets all about how it is that I make money, completely and totally.

As with the rest of the US, we’re having cold weather. No snow or rain or sleet but temperatures not reaching freezing. Most of the schools are either on delay or closed outright so everybody’s scrambling for childcare and that’s not helping with this most Monday of Tuesdays.

Because it was a long weekend, BabyBoy and I engaged in some cooking projects, mostly involving pasta. We made a durum wheat spaghetti and a more eggy fettuccine with a gochujang sauce on the spaghetti and an fully-involved Bolognese for the fettuccine. It all turned out well and it was fun, which is my excuse for not getting the holiday decorations put away, because by the time I cleaned up pasta making twice as many days I was too tired to be lugging boxes around.

And more fannish news, the kids have me watching an anime that is about an elf who is going back for another DND-ish quest after after her original adventuring party did the thing and returned home as heroes and then grew old and died while she’s more or less immortal. It’s very sweet and I’d tell you the name of it if I could remember it, but basically I say, ‘I wanna watch an episode of the elf show' and somebody pulls up an anime watching site and we watch. Fortunately, it’s dubbed so I don’t have to squint at the TV and read subtitles.

Also in fannish news, I joined getyourwordsout, so maybe I’ll get back into writing fun things…?

Alsoalso, the purple row in today’s Connections was ridiculous, y/y

Be safe, stay warm, ♥ !

Since it’s Wednesday, let’s talk about books…

I read 84 books in 2023, which is the most I’ve read in a lot of years decades. I’m pretty pleased with that. I’m also pleased that I followed up on an idea from one of the many book podcasts in my audio rotation to create a project for my reading. Somewhere in the middle of driving back from Orlando in January of 2023, I decided I could read all of Jane Austen. I just finished Persuasion to wrap up all of her completed and published novels, and am starting in on her unfinished writings and her juvenilia. There’s a satisfying checkmark next to all of this in my head so I think once I finish up all the loose ends there I’m going to set my next project to reading Ursula K LeGuin, at least the Earthsea cycle and the Hainish universe.

I dislike having to pick "the best" books I’ve read, but the ones that have stuck in my head are Spare, Prince Harry’s memoir, which I listened to as I was packing out the kitchen. I’m firmly in the audiobook camp for this one; I don’t think I could’ve kept reading it on the page. And then there’s the Spoiler Alert trilogy, because you have to admire someone who took her frustration with the debacle that was the final season of Game of Thrones and turned it into her own blockbuster-fantasy-series-falling-apart-at-the-end-of-its-run setting, and then writing happy endings for the actors. Quite possibly, we know this person.

…and now for the traditional Wednesday book meme

done
As mentioned above, I just finished Persuasion by Jane Austin, and really, is there anything better than "… I am half agony, half hope"? I do love the trio of sea captains, how supportive and caring they are for each other but I was listening to this in the car as we were driving over the holidays and #2Son was up in the front seat with me and just kept saying 'oh my God these people are awful' every time Anne's family showed up, which, fair.

reading now
I currently am in the middle of a A Holly Jolly Ever After which is the second of (I’m assuming) a trio of romances that lean to the very spicy side with the members of a former boyband finding love while filming softcore porn Hallmark Christmas movies… I feel like I for real have to know these writers from back in the popslash days, lol. This one has a lot to say about purity culture and the terrible standards to which we as a society hold women so it’s not *just* sex although there is a lot of it.

up next
I have the most recent Sebastian St Cyr mystery and also the one before it because it’s been so long since I’ve read them I honestly don’t remember where we are in that series. I’ve had them out long enough that I just renewed them, so I should really get on them before the library starts yelling at me to bring them back.

Believe it or not, I'm still here -- I even read my flist/circle more days than not, though commenting is almost as rare as posting. Things are fine, just a lot going on, and while the remodel on the house is progressing well (::knocks on wood::) it's like moving into a new house but in slow motion, with boxes everywhere and more trash than I want to think about. (Seriously. 3 of the big dumpsters and we're about to call in #4 for the kitchen demo, oy.)

Anyway!

I really don't want to drag all that in here, because I got hit with a nostalgia wave today...

To my popslash girls: did we* know that Lance (with Michael as cohost) has a new podcast, about boybands, and that his first three guests have been JC, AJ, and Jonathon Knight from NKOTB?

(*Well, I'm mean, obviously, I didn't know, but possibly I am not hopelessly behind the times? *koff* Yeah, don't answer that.)

Anyway. I listened to the JC episode, which was super fun and I've seen some Insta/TikTok clips of the other two and I must say, it's made cleaning out today's cupboard (see above, re: slow-motion-house-move, dear god they're going to demo the kitchen in like 3 weeks, ACK) somewhat less of a slog.

ALSO. I was running around Target looking for decent towels that don't cost FIFTY DOLLARS EACH, holy *$%#!, and I saw this, in the year of our Lord 2023 ( Read more... )

Like, seriously? 2023?

I guess it's somewhat apropos that the Sparkly Dancing Boys dragged a post out of me, yeah? (And just so you know, once I typed out the post, I had to find the picture, remember how to email it to my account, be bewildered why I couldn't find my Lance icon, realize my account had reverted to free, find my wallet, and pay for the account renewal with the extra icons, so let's hear it for my executive functioning, y'all!)

Have a good rest of the week and let's hope my brain stays un-overwhelmed enough that I can post a little more frequently, ♥ to you all

When last we chatted, my internet was goooooone (gone!) but they were able to get me onto fiber at a not-overwhelming price, so, yay, I'm not tethering my work laptop through my phone. (It's an exciting life, I know, but it is what it is.)

In actually exciting news, my new, 66-inch long soaking tub just got carried into the house. (squee) I'm hoping to be able to take a celebratory Halloween bath.

okay, it's Wednesday and I actually finished a few books last week, so let's do it

read
Our Crooked Hearts, Melissa Albert == Witchy, multi-generational, lots of female friendships.

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, Hank Green == The sequel to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing which is less a sequel and more the second half of the story but it does finish things off. I had a long split between the books, but #2 read them back-to-back and he also felt it was a good wrap-up.

reading
Portrait of a Thief, Grace D. Li == Ocean's Eleven with group of Chinese-American university students and priceless Chinese artifacts disappearing from Western museums. So far, I'm loving it.

next
Whatever the library sends my way...