vital functions
Aug. 25th, 2019 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettReading. The Binding, Bridget Collins. I did in fact love this! It put me very much in mind of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, in that it contains familial expectations and obligations, and Forbidden Love, and weird interplays of memory. Very low on women, but I liked the Idea and I liked the writing and I am open to hunting down more of this author's work.
The Masked City, Genevieve Cogman. Still a little frustrated by characters being inconsistent, and not as clever as they think they are, but definitely on balance enjoying and intending to keep inhaling them while I am of relatively little brain. Not finished this one yet, but expecting to in the next day or so.
Up next: I've got, variously, in hardcopy, Trans Mission and Peter Ackroyd's London Under (Oakwood book exchange), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun (charity shop), Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia (on loan fromsebastienne) and Tales from the Inner City (which I bought in December last year and still need to settle down to). But it's also fairly likely that, as I'm in transit a fair bit over the first half of the week, that I'll just get the next Cogman out of the library via the magic of the Internet.
Watching. The Blue Planet: Tidal Seas. Still excellent soothing nature documentary, in which no-one has any idea what the fuck anything is doing (except that it's probably A Sex Thing) but there are lots of pretty animals and excellent footage.
Particularly enjoyed this time: the SNAILS that SURF (carnivorism in action). Adam was, of course, very fond of the thimble jellyfish, which get HERDED by CURRENTS. Poor Knight islands, where stingrays FLOAT under ROCK ARCHES (it might be a sex thing). The New Zealand demoiselle Chromis dispilus has very good fins. Nurse sharks sitting in patient queues in deep-water channels in very tidal areas.
The Sound Effect Humans had a wonderful time with the hermit crabs doing a fight in the general vicinity of a horse conch.
I got sucked into reading about electroreception; I'm mildly horrified by tarpons, which are FISH that can BREATHE AIR, which makes them truly horrifying predators in the context of mangrove swamps.
Brine shrimp are shrimp and therefore sort of woobly and horrifying BUT they are a fascinating Here's How Flamingoes Go Pink in the context of v tidal salt flats; my note here is "Caribbean flamingoes apparently just sort of wander along upside down going narm narm narm (nesting in the middle of brine)" (because this keeps their babies, which are ACTUALLY A SENSIBLE SHAPE, safe).
And, finally, Christmas Island red crabs Gecarcoidea natalis are really rubbish, and I love them. They! Are land crabs!!! That... can't, according to David Attenborough, breathe underwater, AT LEAST IN THEIR MATURE FORM, and yet! eggs need contact with salt water to hatch, and then the larval babies spend 3-4 weeks At Sea growing up! I don't understand. why.
(Okay I lied: bonus finally: sand bubbler crabs.)
ELEMENTARY. ELEMENTARY ELEMENTARY ELEMENTARY. Oh show. Oh show. <333 I cried a lot, in good ways, which is about the highest praise it's possible for a show finale to get from me.
Cooking. There was a lot on the list for this week - vanilla ice cream, maybe get my act together to make some wafers, lemon curd??? - but in fact I've ended up barely cooking at all, because everything has just been Very. I am as yet (currently on the M25) undecided as to whether I'll be prepping the dry ingredients for soda bread tonight (to bake for breakfast tomorrow) or if I'll just do all of it tomorrow morning.
Exploring. Relatively little exploring; this week has been spent mostly In Lab, Recovering From Lab, or Helping B Pack. However! Freecycle has been exceeding kind, providing An Embarrassment Of Moving Boxes and also an all-in-one printer.
Creating. I very cautiously curled up on the sofa, in the middle of my wretched PIP appeal write-up, while getting A to look it over, with my new pad of watercolour paper and my new watercolour pencils and a ramekin of water and my brushes, and put myself together test swatches of all the fancy pencils. I have some Extremely Tentative Ideas about how to achieve Crassula arborescens, and might actually mess around with them some more in slightly more earnest this week, depending.
I have Thoughts on Art As Vulnerability that I need to poke at as and when I get around to writing up Daring Greatly, I think.
The Masked City, Genevieve Cogman. Still a little frustrated by characters being inconsistent, and not as clever as they think they are, but definitely on balance enjoying and intending to keep inhaling them while I am of relatively little brain. Not finished this one yet, but expecting to in the next day or so.
Up next: I've got, variously, in hardcopy, Trans Mission and Peter Ackroyd's London Under (Oakwood book exchange), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun (charity shop), Shaun Tan's Tales from Outer Suburbia (on loan from
sebastienne) and Tales from the Inner City (which I bought in December last year and still need to settle down to). But it's also fairly likely that, as I'm in transit a fair bit over the first half of the week, that I'll just get the next Cogman out of the library via the magic of the Internet.Watching. The Blue Planet: Tidal Seas. Still excellent soothing nature documentary, in which no-one has any idea what the fuck anything is doing (except that it's probably A Sex Thing) but there are lots of pretty animals and excellent footage.
Particularly enjoyed this time: the SNAILS that SURF (carnivorism in action). Adam was, of course, very fond of the thimble jellyfish, which get HERDED by CURRENTS. Poor Knight islands, where stingrays FLOAT under ROCK ARCHES (it might be a sex thing). The New Zealand demoiselle Chromis dispilus has very good fins. Nurse sharks sitting in patient queues in deep-water channels in very tidal areas.
The Sound Effect Humans had a wonderful time with the hermit crabs doing a fight in the general vicinity of a horse conch.
I got sucked into reading about electroreception; I'm mildly horrified by tarpons, which are FISH that can BREATHE AIR, which makes them truly horrifying predators in the context of mangrove swamps.
Brine shrimp are shrimp and therefore sort of woobly and horrifying BUT they are a fascinating Here's How Flamingoes Go Pink in the context of v tidal salt flats; my note here is "Caribbean flamingoes apparently just sort of wander along upside down going narm narm narm (nesting in the middle of brine)" (because this keeps their babies, which are ACTUALLY A SENSIBLE SHAPE, safe).
And, finally, Christmas Island red crabs Gecarcoidea natalis are really rubbish, and I love them. They! Are land crabs!!! That... can't, according to David Attenborough, breathe underwater, AT LEAST IN THEIR MATURE FORM, and yet! eggs need contact with salt water to hatch, and then the larval babies spend 3-4 weeks At Sea growing up! I don't understand. why.
(Okay I lied: bonus finally: sand bubbler crabs.)
ELEMENTARY. ELEMENTARY ELEMENTARY ELEMENTARY. Oh show. Oh show. <333 I cried a lot, in good ways, which is about the highest praise it's possible for a show finale to get from me.
Cooking. There was a lot on the list for this week - vanilla ice cream, maybe get my act together to make some wafers, lemon curd??? - but in fact I've ended up barely cooking at all, because everything has just been Very. I am as yet (currently on the M25) undecided as to whether I'll be prepping the dry ingredients for soda bread tonight (to bake for breakfast tomorrow) or if I'll just do all of it tomorrow morning.
Exploring. Relatively little exploring; this week has been spent mostly In Lab, Recovering From Lab, or Helping B Pack. However! Freecycle has been exceeding kind, providing An Embarrassment Of Moving Boxes and also an all-in-one printer.
Creating. I very cautiously curled up on the sofa, in the middle of my wretched PIP appeal write-up, while getting A to look it over, with my new pad of watercolour paper and my new watercolour pencils and a ramekin of water and my brushes, and put myself together test swatches of all the fancy pencils. I have some Extremely Tentative Ideas about how to achieve Crassula arborescens, and might actually mess around with them some more in slightly more earnest this week, depending.
I have Thoughts on Art As Vulnerability that I need to poke at as and when I get around to writing up Daring Greatly, I think.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-08-26 05:40 am (UTC)I have Thoughts on Art As Vulnerability that I need to poke at as and when I get around to writing up Daring Greatly, I think.
*looks forward*
(no subject)
Date: 2019-08-27 09:23 am (UTC)