vital functions
Feb. 9th, 2020 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettReading. The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, bell hooks. I'm reading this in little bits; it's very clear, and very direct, and it's nourishing but I'm having a lot of feelings about it and can only take it a little at a time.
Hexarchate Stories, Yoon Ha Lee. I'm down to the penultimate story, enjoying myself immensely (to the extent that I nearly missed my bus stop entirely earlier, saved only by A prompting me), and dithering over whether I want to reread the trilogy before launching into the final novella.
Watching. Knives Out. This is brilliantly observed; it's sharp and delicate and understated and I love it to the point that I sat down three days later to watch it again with a friend (who alas had to leave somewhat precipitously). Just. It's funny and painful and perfect.
Listening. A bunch more of The Magnus Archives. You collectively win, you'll be delighted to hear: I have at several points this week gone "and hmm, that remarkably evocative description of place and setting that's kind of haunting me, what did I read that in, it was so good--" before realising that I had not, in fact, read it at all. We're now had up to episode 32; I forget which it was, but one of them was extremely "ah yes, here's the Jonny d'Ville voice, What Nostalgia" and I had a bunch of feelings. Am enjoying. Will continue listening.
Cooking. We had evening gym this week, because our usual lunchtime routine was Disrupted by the Mouldering Ancestral Pile, and I remembered in time that if I put potatoes in the oven to bake shortly before setting off down the hill, they are Pretty Much Perfect upon our (sweaty and Hungry) return home.
Eating. Green & Black's Velvet Edition Dark Chocolate Raspberry and Hazelnut (acquired for Adam by my mother, but he doesn't believe in Fruit Bits In Chocolate so it's mine now) is in theory right up my street but in practice I'm just finding the hazelnut component Disappointing.
From the Southbank Centre food market, ethiopiques and the Sicilian cannoli. (Cannoli are always a dither for me -- pistachio? hazelnut?? -- and I usually end up getting the candied citrus peel and deciding I Chose Correctly, and this time was no exception.)
The Delaunay, with A & relative, as a belated birthday thing for himself. (It was intended to be relatives plural, but Storm Ciara was disrupting public transport enough that only the London contingent managed to show up.) Being as it markets itself as Mitteleuropäisch, with a number of Austrian specialities, I naturally went in with the firm intention of being extremely picky -- and for the most part it was very good. The cucumber salad was excellent with the exception that the onion was sliced too thickly; the Spätzle were good, as was the accompanying mushroom dish that was advertised as stroganoff but struck me as distinctly gulasch-y. The Kaiserschmarrn was to my tastes somewhat dry, but the plum compote was just the right balance of tart and sweet, and well-spiced. I'm now, inevitably, attempting to work myself up to making some at home. ("The cucumber salad was excellent": I nearly cried into it, in that the last time I had it made for me it was by my grandmother.) It's always fascinating to me to see Fancy Restaurant Pricing approaches to The Peasant Food Of My People, and while I think that on the whole I'd rather Make It At Home For Nothing than actually pay fancy restaurant prices it was a thoroughly pleasant excursion.
Exploring. Dora Maar at the Tate Modern with a friend who's a member. I think I liked best her early-ish portraiture, doing interesting things with profiles and shadows and the shapes of rooms, and her late experiments with household objects. Her documentary photographs of Barcelona felt very familiar to me, in that they felt extremely similar to many of the (... not dissimilar vintage...) silver gelatine prints of my grandfather's that I've spent a lot of time sorting through.
Creating. A little more adventure in mixing greens with watercolour pencils. I begin to feel, very cautiously, that I might start to understand some of how it all tries to fit together and work.
Growing. Lemon: :(. (Not dead yet.)
Other miscellaneous plants: I do not entirely understand why the holy basil is stubbornly stuck at two (2) True Leaves, but siiiigh, maybe for my next attempt I'll try keeping it in the warm box until it has got Even Bigger.
Peppers chillis etc so far doing well.
Playing. Main game of Portal 2: finished! I had feelings. I have not yet completionismed the achievements, and on the one hand might yet do that and on the other feel curiously as though I might, also, be able to... not. Which might be nice! We shall see.
Hexarchate Stories, Yoon Ha Lee. I'm down to the penultimate story, enjoying myself immensely (to the extent that I nearly missed my bus stop entirely earlier, saved only by A prompting me), and dithering over whether I want to reread the trilogy before launching into the final novella.
Watching. Knives Out. This is brilliantly observed; it's sharp and delicate and understated and I love it to the point that I sat down three days later to watch it again with a friend (who alas had to leave somewhat precipitously). Just. It's funny and painful and perfect.
Listening. A bunch more of The Magnus Archives. You collectively win, you'll be delighted to hear: I have at several points this week gone "and hmm, that remarkably evocative description of place and setting that's kind of haunting me, what did I read that in, it was so good--" before realising that I had not, in fact, read it at all. We're now had up to episode 32; I forget which it was, but one of them was extremely "ah yes, here's the Jonny d'Ville voice, What Nostalgia" and I had a bunch of feelings. Am enjoying. Will continue listening.
Cooking. We had evening gym this week, because our usual lunchtime routine was Disrupted by the Mouldering Ancestral Pile, and I remembered in time that if I put potatoes in the oven to bake shortly before setting off down the hill, they are Pretty Much Perfect upon our (sweaty and Hungry) return home.
Eating. Green & Black's Velvet Edition Dark Chocolate Raspberry and Hazelnut (acquired for Adam by my mother, but he doesn't believe in Fruit Bits In Chocolate so it's mine now) is in theory right up my street but in practice I'm just finding the hazelnut component Disappointing.
From the Southbank Centre food market, ethiopiques and the Sicilian cannoli. (Cannoli are always a dither for me -- pistachio? hazelnut?? -- and I usually end up getting the candied citrus peel and deciding I Chose Correctly, and this time was no exception.)
The Delaunay, with A & relative, as a belated birthday thing for himself. (It was intended to be relatives plural, but Storm Ciara was disrupting public transport enough that only the London contingent managed to show up.) Being as it markets itself as Mitteleuropäisch, with a number of Austrian specialities, I naturally went in with the firm intention of being extremely picky -- and for the most part it was very good. The cucumber salad was excellent with the exception that the onion was sliced too thickly; the Spätzle were good, as was the accompanying mushroom dish that was advertised as stroganoff but struck me as distinctly gulasch-y. The Kaiserschmarrn was to my tastes somewhat dry, but the plum compote was just the right balance of tart and sweet, and well-spiced. I'm now, inevitably, attempting to work myself up to making some at home. ("The cucumber salad was excellent": I nearly cried into it, in that the last time I had it made for me it was by my grandmother.) It's always fascinating to me to see Fancy Restaurant Pricing approaches to The Peasant Food Of My People, and while I think that on the whole I'd rather Make It At Home For Nothing than actually pay fancy restaurant prices it was a thoroughly pleasant excursion.
Exploring. Dora Maar at the Tate Modern with a friend who's a member. I think I liked best her early-ish portraiture, doing interesting things with profiles and shadows and the shapes of rooms, and her late experiments with household objects. Her documentary photographs of Barcelona felt very familiar to me, in that they felt extremely similar to many of the (... not dissimilar vintage...) silver gelatine prints of my grandfather's that I've spent a lot of time sorting through.
Creating. A little more adventure in mixing greens with watercolour pencils. I begin to feel, very cautiously, that I might start to understand some of how it all tries to fit together and work.
Growing. Lemon: :(. (Not dead yet.)
Other miscellaneous plants: I do not entirely understand why the holy basil is stubbornly stuck at two (2) True Leaves, but siiiigh, maybe for my next attempt I'll try keeping it in the warm box until it has got Even Bigger.
Peppers chillis etc so far doing well.
Playing. Main game of Portal 2: finished! I had feelings. I have not yet completionismed the achievements, and on the one hand might yet do that and on the other feel curiously as though I might, also, be able to... not. Which might be nice! We shall see.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-09 11:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-10 02:30 am (UTC)Re: Knives out
Date: 2020-02-10 02:50 am (UTC)I caught the Chekov's knife line delivered early on in the movie, and sure enough, the suspense of when it would be cashed in was resolved.
Re: Knives out
Date: 2020-02-10 09:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-10 02:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-10 04:13 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-10 10:15 pm (UTC)I think I never finished Portal 2. Well done!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-02-10 10:32 pm (UTC)