vital functions

[kaberett]

Reading. I have FINISHED Index, A History of the (Dennis Duncan), including both indexes, including The Games Therein, and had a Great time.

Started (just now) The Rose Field, volume three of The Book of Dust (Philip Pullman). I am expecting to not like it sufficient that I had zero intention of buying it but nonetheless It Showed Up On My Doorstep and I now have someone to pass it on to, which means I have a route for GETTING IT OUT OF MY HOUSE that I will feel good about facilitating. The Thing Is, right, that the wildly unethical academic/student Age Gap Relationship Situation is precisely calibrated to really get under my skin; I am Not Interested in Yet Another Round of This Specific Bullshit, especially given My History with these books. So I was extremely sour about the second book, and very sad about that, and also didn't really... believe... in basically anything that happened in it... so as I say I'm not hugely hopeful for this, but hey, maybe I'm being unfair to it.

Writing. Did you know that getting knowledge out of your own head and into other people's is a specific set of skills that has very little to do with how well you know the things you're trying to communicate? TRY TO LOOK SHOCKED, PLEASE. (6.3k words, and am absolutely in an Iterative Cycle of trying to make the introduction more-or-less work. It is progressing, just... very slowly.)

Listening. I realised that Hidden Almanac was possibly in fact exactly a useful sort of thing to listen to while Wrangling Laundry, and have therefore started again from the beginning, at least in part as an attempt to actually listen to some of the episodes I dozed through while they were playing in the car...

Playing. Incomplete White Puzzle progresses. (Today I have added I think three pieces to the contiguous section, two of which I had already joined to each other as a free-foating lump, and made another couple of free-floating lump connections.)

I think we also did a bit more Inkulinati before I got horrendously distracted by Puzzle. And the sudoku fixation continues, though it is at least ramping down a little.

Cooking. I have been having A Rough Week brain-wise, but I have today managed to make some bread, and I did earlier in the week gently fry up some celery and garlic to add to the mashed potato & parsnip that we were having with Vegetables and Veg Sossij. I think that is about the extent of it.

Eating. VEGETABLES, including a couple of peppers from an overwintered plant. (Restricted diet for a week up until the Tuesday just gone, so the return of Fibre was Extremely Welcome.) Favourite chocolate stars with raspberries. Fruit With Skin On. Lebkuchen. Stollen. Seeds and nuts.

Growing. I think the nematodes (applied as a split dose a few days apart) have dealt? at least temporarily? with the sodding Sciarid Flies? for now?

Lemongrass needs pricking out. Physalis are showing zero indication that they have any intention of germinating, which is mildly annoying. There are still three not-dead Lithops seedlings, though I doubt they're the same three as last week. Orchids getting increasingly enthusiastic about their plans to flower.

Have not managed to get anything else sown, yet.

Observing. Lots of bulbs: daffodils and crocuses various and snowdrops are Definitely Underway, at this point. We are fairly convinced that the Yelling from the garden around dusk is Amorous Foxes, though we have not (yet?) bestirred ourselves to ask the internet if what we think we're hearing is in fact what we're hearing...

Comments

[magid]

I loved Index, a History of the, including the index games (which got messed up in the first USian edition, so I emailed the author, and he was glad to get the reminder for the 2nd printing; so excitingg!).

[redbird]

Not only is writing a separate set of skills, but writing an introduction is a separate skill set from explaining how something works--"here's why this is important" is different from "here's how I'm going to cover this subject," and they're both different from just diving in to discussing the facts or telling people what happened.

[recessional]

continue to be happy with my choice to live in a universe where Pullman didn’t bother wasting our time with any more books.