Whoop whoop! TDR: Freed has passed 20K words! But as I added some on Wednesday, I’m skipping it today. I’ve been trying to get a writing day going since then. Or should I say, trying to finish one. Most of Wednesday was actually spent sorting beads again. Thursday was too busy with Thursday things, and yesterday was Alyssa Day.
Also I think Calli and Jake may be about to do the deed. The stereotype of The Hero About to Leave on His Quest bit. But unlike some of the books I’ve been reading...
I highly recommend the Sisters of the Salt duology by Erin A. Craig! The first book, House of Salt and Sorrows (2019), is a twisty, fast-paced story, sort of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" crossed with a Gothic murder mystery/ghost story. As a bonus, there's a romance subplot that doesn't take over the whole story. The second book, House of Roots and Ruin (2023), is a bit slower-paced (at least up to the climactic scenes), but still hard to put down. The very ending made me want another book...
Finished: The Haunting at Blackwood Hall by Barrymore Tebbs. 1 star; book #21 for the year. Okay, new rule: No matter how tempting it is to finish reading a book for the fun of dropping more than four dozen snarky notes in the text (perhaps a personal record), I need to stop wasting my time with crap reads. It was a wholly cliched plot rendered so sloppily that I was astonished to see an editor mentioned in the acknowledgements. The only reason I gave it one star instead of none was that the...
Listening to: “Strangelove” by Depeche Mode, Reveal, “Temptation’s ‘bout to Get Me” by The Rascals
The cold hangs on. I had the time to clean the kitchen today, but not the energy. Now it’ll have to be next week. At least nobody cares but me.
Instead I made a half-dozen kid-size bracelets, and then Heather and I took Mousie to the park. We let it go at the base of the big tree as usual, but instead of climbing up it took off toward the street. Then a crow swooped down on it, which made it...
I forgot to note yesterday that I reached a milestone in Freed. I got to the point where Captive ended. I’m not going to cover the final conversational bits; I’ll just do a little time-skip. At least now I no longer have to worry about two timelines matching up.
ugh. I don’t know if I have the energy to exercise today. It’s too cold for the bike. Maybe I’ll give it a try and just promise myself I’ll stop if I get too tired.
Mousie is fine, by the way – seems to be, anyway. I don’t know if it...
Yesterday was another day of getting nothing done, but at least I had a good excuse this time. And at least we didn’t spend the whole Alyssa Day watching TV for a change. Heather and Alyssa spent some time playing outside, both here and at the park. And I brought out my Sunshine Family dolls; we all played with those for a few hours. It was a decent day.
The other night I picked up (what was going to be) my next read, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Right inside the...
Listening to: It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton, and once again trying to get up the nerve to ask Wil if he’d ever consider reading a story by a self-published author. I’m sure I’m not the first one to think about it. Probably more than one person already has. I probably never will.
Finished: Folktales from India, edited by A.K. Ramanujan. 5 stars; book #14 for the year. This was one of the books I got during my first visit to Words to Live By. I think I was expecting some new and unsual-to-me...
I had another weird-coincidence moment yesterday. There was an article in the paper about odd things that have been found in the Red River. It included a picture from the Herald archives showing a car being pulled from the river in 1994. And the tow-truck driver standing on the bank with a rope? Christ Naslund. I recognized the name in the caption, and thought “Is that – ?” Looked more closely at his face and, yep. That doesn’t happen every day, I must say. 40 years after graduation; 30...
Finished: Under Falling Skies by Kate MacLeod. 3 stars; book #12 for the year. meh. A locked-room murder mystery, basically, with sci-fi trappings. Not bad, but not good enough to get me to read the next one.
Listening to: You’re Dead to Me, “Don’t Lose Your Head” by Queen, “Use Me” by Bill Withers
Watched: Desperate Housewives
Hang on just a minute. My bg was supposedly 131 before breakfast, but post-breakfast and post-workout it’s 87?!? No way it dropped that low in like two hours. One of those measurements had to be wrong. And I probably could have had a Pop-Tart for breakfast after all.
Listening to: “Found Out About You” by Gin Blossoms, “A Line Storm Song” by Katie and Jered McKenna, Sideways
Watched: Blake’s 7
I finally found a regular time for junk-journaling! I always end up with an hour or more free after...
Yes, Friday the 13th, etc.
Last night I started reading The Blind Side by Michael Lewis. Decided it wasn’t for me though. I expected something more novel-like, I guess, even though it’s (semi-)biographical. The beginning was just endless blah-blah about football and football players. I suppose if I was at all interested in football it would be different. Ah well; I found it in an LFL and it will go back into one.
Listening to: Inside of You
My bg was 115 before breakfast and 93 after my...
Listening to: The Atlas Obscura Podcast, “Long Ago and Far Away” by Glenn Miller, “Treat Her Like a Lady” by The Temptations
Finished: You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day. 5 stars; book #10 for the year. A fun read, even in the more serious parts. It was a great look into the mind of somebody I’m reasonably familiar with but wanted to know more about. I would have liked more details about her time on Buffy and Supernatural, but I guess that wasn’t the focus, so. I got...
Finished: The People’s Library. 4 stars; book #9 for the year. Great concept, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me. I wouldn’t say there’s anything bad about it; it’s mostly well-written. But most of the story took place over the span of about four days, and they seemed to be the longest four days in history. And the supposed timespan didn’t match up in other ways. Maybe I’m misremembering, but it seemed like Echo and Jesse “met” only a day or two before that long long weekend. And yet...
Finished: Scythe by Neal Shusterman. An LFL find of Heather’s. 5 stars; book #8 for the year. I was going to say, who would have thought of making a dystopia out of a world where humans are immortal? Then I realized: well, duh. A super-computer runs everything; there’s no more war, poverty, disease, or serious crime; people don’t have to age past 25 or so . . . Of course people will get bored out of their skulls and teenagers will start committing non-fatal suicide for the fun of it. And they...
I was up about 3:30 this morning for the usual reason. On my way back to bed I suddenly couldn’t remember whether the word was spelled “enviroment” or “environment” and I couldn’t rest until I’d A) posted about it on Bluesky and B) looked it up. It’s not helped by the way most people pronounce it (at least around here) “en-vire-ment”. Anyway. At least it wasn’t a nightmare this time.
Something interesting yesterday which nobody but me will find interesting. I’ve been reading a series of...
Well, I want to keep reading The Nanny’s Handbook to Magic; it looks fun from the sample. But both the Kindle and the print version cost more than I want to spend on a book I’ll likely only read once. So on my list it goes. Next up: The People’s Library by Veronica G. Haney.
Okay, I’m reading this. Another book with a weird library? I’m in.
Listening to: Milk Street Radio, “Sweet Rosalyn” by Sheryl Crow, “Me and Armini” by Emiliana Torrini
Well, thanks to Micky and Boo, my first words of this month weren’t “rabbit rabbit” but “Hey! Cut it out!” So that’s this month done.
At least it’s warm enough for me to ride my bike today. But I didn’t get Pop-Tart breakfast.
Listening to: Milk Street Radio, “A View to a Kill” by Duran Duran, “Stoppin’ the Love” by KT Tunstall
Finished: A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke. 5 stars; book #7 for the year. Magical realism, I guess? I’m not sure exactly why I like it so much,...
Listening to: Milk Street Radio
My brain continued its quest to drive me mad last night (or was it simply a quest to wake me up because my right arm had fallen asleep? I’ll never know.). I, as a kid, had a pet lion cub. But so sad, it was sick. Dream-mother decided well, we might as well cook it up for supper.
By boiling it in a large kettle.
While it was still alive.
Until its head split down the middle, at which point I knew it was no longer alive.
And I, watching this, was thinking, “I don...
Watched: Sapphire & Steel
My appointment went all right the other day. In fact it was so quick I don’t know how they have the gall to charge me for it. But they will. In, out, everything’s fine, no changes necessary, goodbye.
I was supposed to make a necklace today, but I couldn’t find an idea – or a pendant I wanted to use. Instead I made a couple of elastic bracelets, just as a test, really. I’m thinking of giving one to Alyssa next time I see her, so she can wear-test it for me. See...
Listening to: Milk Street Radio
So the other day I decided it was time to update my profile picture online. I’d been using one Sophie took at the gallery back in 2016, pretty much everywhere (and I just realized there are a few places where I haven’t changed it yet). So I took a selfie, in the den, in sunlight. Big mistake. That light brought out all the lines on my face, ones that I didn’t even realize were there because mostly I look at myself in the bathroom mirrors. Apparently the...