someone is gathering every crumb that you drop

[kaberett]

1. I do actively like getting up with dawn and being in work by 8am. If I could find a way to do that sustainably (given insomnia, fatigue, etc) then I'd be all over it. (Two days running this week; aiming to replicate tomorrow. Though, to be fair, I did come home very early this afternoon and then sleep. But -- I got labwork done before 9am, I taught for three hours, and I booked mass spec time. And I'm doing some more faff at home. Writing abstracts is haaard. I mean, actually I think formal writing is hard, but perhaps I will work out how to get past this, sigh.)

2. Facesfriend is great, though - I stayed over at theirs last night, and sometime in the wee hours they very gently woke me up enough for me to disentangle myself from the nightmare I was having (whimpery rather than screamy, thank goodness; once a year or so I wake myself up screaming, and I'm always very embarrassed about the disruption to other people) and then they coaxed me back to sleep and... gosh, that was nice.

3. Guiltknitting progresses apace. It was supposed to be done 18 months ago. I was stalled on it for all sorts of reasons, largely boiling down to "autism" (it became apparent I hadn't bought enough of the main colour; no more of that dye lot was to be had; I couldn't work out what on earth to do about this; and then for the primary gifting period largest smallcousin bought me some very tasteful yarn, some medium-tasteful yarn, and some yarn that um looks kind of like a sunset got overly excited and has a terrible hangover; the sunset yarn goes very well with the purple). I am unblocked and nearly halfway through the section I charted up. Weaving in the ends is going to be a pain and a half - why I thought learning to do intarsia with two strands no less in the context of double-knitting I have no idea but hey, it's working and legible, so.

4. I have acquired the rest of the Toby Daye books in paperback from eBay, to my immense frustration, because apparently it's impossible to buy the ebooks from anyone but Amazon in the UK, and my preferred UK booksellers aren't carrying the volumes I want, so... eBay. And in attempting to locate the short stories I have spoiled myself for something that was starting to really irritate me, so I can now read on secure in the knowledge that the characters are going to stop being so infuriatingly oblivious sometime soon (well, two books' time, but). (I am also feeling kind of guilty for spending money on books by white folk - calissa posted recently about diversity and reading; one of the ways I try to (1) ~broaden my horizons~ and (2) restrict my spending on books, in addition to "don't buy anything while the to-read pile on the ereader is greater than $number" [currently 25, previously 50], is to by-and-large avoid buying books by whitey? On the grounds that I get loaned lots of them and I can satisfy most of my desire-to-read-white-people via loans, so. AND ON THE OTHER HAND I am working super hard this month in lab terms, I'm helping teach a maths course which is a massive deal, I am a bit ill, paper books are good for reading in lab because not metal, and for all I'm finding them gently frustrating they are excellent brain-candy.)

5. I really do need to set up that review blog. Which in turn means that I need to get my act together to choose a CMS for my personal website, siiigh.

Comments

[davidgillon]

apparently it's impossible to buy the ebooks from anyone but Amazon in the UK

AFAICS even that's not possible. A couple of the later ones have kindle pages on the Amazon site, but they say 'Not currently available for purchase'. Colour me annoyed.

ETA: Oh, and ++ to Facesfriend for nightmare wrangling.

[alexseanchai]

CMS?

Yay Toby Daye!

Glad you have facesfriend.

[starlady]

I love those Toby Daye books so much, and so unexpectedly too.

IMO trying to buy books by POC and not ones by white authors is a worthy goal, but I don't think that means you have to deny yourself pleasure reading when you want and need it.

[calissa]

Well said.

[calissa]

While I am certainly interested in diversity and reading, I know that guilting myself into reading only certain kinds of books is a quick way to reader's block. So I hope you will be kind to yourself and enjoy the Toby Daye books. Everyone needs some brain-candy from time to time.

Ooo... review blog! I like the sound of this.

I'm a morning person myself, but that's easy when I generally sleep like a log. There's something wonderful about getting work done and out of the way early in the day.

Facesfriend sounds like they bring ease. This is an excellent thing.

[kaberett]

Right, so the deal is more that I know there is braincandy out there by chromatic authors too (Nnedi Okorafor!!!), so it's less denying-myself-all-brain-candy-out-of-virtue and more trying-to-social-change-via-things? Putting money where it'll have more effect, and so on. And I'm also frustrated that I've ended up buying all these books second-hand instead of in a way that will actually support Seanan because there appears to be literally no way to do that in the UK, so -- grump all round. But as evidenced by the fact I actually bought them I am being kind to myself on this one. <3

Yes. Ease.

[calissa]

Apologies for jumping to conclusions. Sticking my foot in my mouth seems to be becoming a common thing over the last few days.

[kaberett]

No, you absolutely didn't and it was absolutely warranted - I was unclear, and I'm explaining not because I think you're ~wrong~ or whatever but because your comment made me feel very loved and very cared for, and I wanted to unpack a bit more what I meant so that you might feel you had less cause to worry about me <3

[calissa]

Thank you <3

I would love to hear some more thoughts from you on braincandy by chromatic authors at some stage. It seems to me that I could use some of that.

I am Duvet, the Truth, and the Light

[hairyears]

Disentangling someone gently from a nightmare: of all the things that you can do for a partner, that is surely the most loving.

[hilarita]

You are being more diverse in your reading - not in terms of race, but in terms of queerness and disability.

[kaberett]

Sure, but queerness and disability are topics I know about ;)

(And, slightly more seriously, as I've grumbled about to alexseanchai, the early Toby Daye books are actually really bad at queernesstude and disability, mostly in terms of their simply not existing. I have now readjusted expectations from "Indexing" to "oh right these were written a decade earlier", but also UGH SO MANY HET COUPLES SUCH POLY-TEASING.)

[khronos_keeper]

1.) I also have been finding that it is getting progressively more rewarding for me to wake up with the morning and feel like I have the whole day ahead of me to get academia world satisfied! I'm not sure why, or how this came about. Possibly this is due to a.) epilepsy meds and b.) farming hours eliding into school hours. But isn't it nice to feel like you have the "rest of the day" to yourself?

2.) I feel you on the restless/fucked sleeping. The past two days has had me feeling lethargic and drawn, and even after an hour long nap was exhausted. Most probably because I wake myself up with spastic movements while sleeping, or I stop breathing. sighhh (This is largely the reason I do not want to share quarters with anyone, because sleeping with me would be so disruptive augh.)

[littlebutfierce]

I am by nature a morning person, & for months & months I've been waking up w/dread & despair & it's felt awful to have the pleasure of the morning taken away from me. Lately I've kind of gotten some of that back? Which feels like a FUCKING MIRACLE.

I am hopeful that maybe Friday if you go into work maybe my package will be there?! Depending on the vagaries of the mail room, no doubt, but it went in the post this afternoon (& I sprung for first class lololol).