The Land of Nowhere

Pandemic life
Some reckless indoor eating with my parents (when the more outdoorish area was unexpectedly booked for an event), and Andrew is working on site for the first time in six years. What could go wrong? *knocks on wood*

Previous poll review
In the Sailing the seas poll, 67.6% of respondents said they prefer ship fic to untangle a thicket of character issues before smooshing, and 67.6% also said, "and/or during". In ticky-boxes, bumble bees with trombones came third, baking came second, and hugs came first. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
I've just finished the latest Murderbot. It was enjoyable enough. (Except for the first four novellas, which I loved unreservedly, I tend to click with them more on the re-read when I have a better idea what the action scenes and security logistics are in aid of.)

Andrew and I started Cetaganda by Bujold over the dishes last night.

A little bit of fanfic, which convinced me I should be reading more in ebook (audio leads to multitasking). Maybe it's time to pick up the next Peter Wimsey.

Kdramas/Cdramas
I'm losing steam on The Red Sleeve. I feel like I still don't have a clear idea of the plot, and all the backstabbing politics makes me want to back away. I think these palace intrigue only works for me when the main characters have solid friendships to rely on (ie, undyingly loyal guards, etc). Otherwise it's like living on quicksand.

Absolute Value of Romance -- disaster probably averted! I am still loving this enormously, and I still believe my preferred outcome is possible.

The Spirealm (Cdrama) -- a few episodes in, neither of the main characters has really grabbed me, and there's a lot of horror plot, which isn't what I watch Asian dramas for. Idk.

Love Scout -- resumed with Pru last night, yayay! This romance drama shines. It's serious and playful, dorky and grown-up. The two leads make an amazing team and really seem to respect and like each other, and the chemistry is so good.

Other TV
We finished Deadloch season 2, which was confusing but really fun. Hopefully there'll be more! Still going on People of Earth.

Raced through The Lincoln Lawyer season 4, which was great. I enjoyed it a lot more than the previous season, I don't know why. Everyone seemed on top form, and it was really nice having Maggie (Neve Campbell) take on a bigger role.

Finished Rooster last night. That was a fun show. I went back and forth on whether it was coming from a liberal-self-parody or conservatives-poking-fun-at-liberals stance. But it mostly worked regardless. Steve Carrell is very watchable.

My sister came over for Fringe on Wednesday, but I'd misplaced the DVD, so we watched the first two episodes of White Collar instead (the pilot is such good TV!!), along with our usual Bluey. With White Collar, I kept going, "I used that clip in a vid, oh, and that one was in a different vid," which made it hard to sink into the story. A good illustration of how I can "wear out" canon. /o\

Andrew and I watched The Odd Couple on DVD -- a great character piece, very stage play, lots of fun.

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, Cross Party Lines, Dreaming Against the Machine (with Adam Becker), some Letters from an American.

Online life
The 520 Day Guardian Reverse Exchange is in the run-up to reveals, so lots of modding. I'm loving 3weeks4dreamwidth this year (does it have to end?), and I have a couple of memes to catch up on.

Writing/making things
My 520 Day gift is polished and done (though today I thought of one line I might need to tweak). Next up, I'm planning to return to my Yuletide fic and actually finish it this time, but I'll wait till the intense modding period has passed. In the meantime, what are the chances of banging out a flashfic for fan_flashworks? I'd say about 50-50.

Life/health/mental state things
[Frothing at the mouth about NZ politics redacted.] I went to the School Strike 4 Climate protest today. I didn't know anyone else there, so I asked a couple of friendly older-looking people if I could walk with them, and we chatted as we went and did our best to avoid being blasted by the megaphones.

This sign reminded me of mific and princessofgeeks, so I had to take a photo:



ION, my shoulder/neck area is still pretty sore. Why are bodies?

House
The work in the kitchen is finished! Which means I should reconstruct everything -- put all the knickknacks back and so on. Yeah... (I really need to organise all my various recycling things. Atm, I get a drift of clean deconstructed tetrapacks in one corner, and soft plastic recycling spilling over in another.)

Language Learning
Today is day 18 of Chinese on Duolingo and Hello Chinese. I got a free week of premium on Duolingo, so I've been focusing on that and just revising the free stuff on Hello Chinese (numbers 1 to 10, and the 10 most common words/characters), but I'm thinking of getting some paid time on Hello Chinese after that. I should figure out how to type characters on my desktop. And I keep meaning to make some character charts to hang on the bathroom wall for toothbrush-time study.

I just added 中文 to my computer so now I can type!


这是我的猫。我的猫不说中文。我的猫喜欢我。我也喜欢我的猫。你喜欢猫吗？Look, I just made 五 sentences! ;-)

Good things
Protests and community. Introverted friends and TV dates. Biking and biking weather. New Zealand butter. Weekends. Kdramas. Fandom. 520 Day. Zhao Yunlaaaaan. Andrew and Halle. Steamed BBQ pork buns.