did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?

Previous poll review
In the Circus poll, 25% of respondents would like to be the knife-thrower, while 18.2% would prefer to be the acrobat. In ticky-boxes, eight hours' sleep beat hugs, 79.5% to 77.3%! Artistic poetry-reciting tigers came third with 54.5%. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
Cetaganda by Bujold (read by Grover Gardner) is fun, but we're not getting through it very quickly for logistical reasons.

I started Ann Leckie's latest Radch book, Radiant Star, read by Adjoa Andoh my beloved, but I'm having trouble focusing. My usual method of audiobook listening is to surf the emotional wave, so to speak, and this is political, worldbuildy omniscient POV. Maybe I should try it in text instead.

I also have some Nghi Vo and the latest Amina al-Sirafi (Shannon Chakraborty) to catch up on, along with the entirety of the 520 Day Guardian Reverse Exchange collection, which went live this week, yay!

Kdramas
I'm super enjoying To My Beloved Thief, a historical that bears similarities to Knight Flower but manages to be crackier. The prince plays against type, which is great, and I'm hanging out for an enemies-to-lovers OT3 (not my usual flavour of OT3, but they're all so entangled). We shall see. No spoilers, please!

Also still into Absolute Value of Romance, though last week's episodes were a bit weird. I'm increasingly conspiracy-theorising that it's a stealth m/m show. Could it be? Surely they realise who their audience is, given the starting premise?! (I haven't been able to watch this week's eps yet. Please don't tell me anything, not even a hint.)

And last weekend, Andrew and our friend Ed and I semi-randomly started a supernatural mystery/thriller called Miraculous Brothers, which I was mostly interested in for Bae Hyun Sung (Hae Joon from Family by Choice). I have no idea where it's going, which is always fun.

Other TV
Pardon My Icelandic - Ari Eldjárn standup special on Netflix. Great linguistic humour, fun with accents. (Hilariously, it came up when I searched for British stand-up.)

Cunk on Earth - one episode. Did not click.

Scrubs (original flavour) has outstayed its welcome. I'm starting to actively dislike JD, and the male-gaziness is off the charts. (Sorry to people who like it!)

The Burroughs - three episodes of the Duffers' new show. It's a bit slow, mostly an exercise in "who's that actor?" but it's only 8 episodes, so we'll probably finish it. (Honestly, I don't think it needs the monsters.) My favourite part is Geena Davis and her younger love interest.

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, Better Offline, Tech Won't Save Us (episode: "The UK Government's AI Obsession is a Big Risk w/ Will Dunn" /o\), Cross Party Lines, Guilt-Free Pleasures ("Whitesnake's Here I Go Again"), Dreaming Against the Machine, about 20 minutes of Pod Save America, Keep It Steady episode 7 (timeline cleanse), a bunch of ChinesePod beginner lessons ("不好意思, 我先走了"), and half an episode of You Can Learn Chinese.

Online life
The 520 Day Reverse Exchange is live, yay!!! I'll post separately about my Utterly Delightful Gift and the thing I wrote. I haven't been very present on Dreamwidth, but I've been around a lot, modding and writing, which feels Dreamwidth-adjacent (at least to me).

Writing/making things
I spent an hour on Wednesday rewriting a single sentence in my 520 Day fic. That's sort of how it's going. I have 687 words of a flashfic that I started for the last fan_flashworks round (Avalanche), which I'm now planning to squeeze into this round (Late). Hopefully I'll finish it soon, so I can keep my "one fic a month" average steady. And then I'll get back to my Yuletide fic.

Life/health/mental state things
At some point pre-Covid, I had standing lunch dates every weekday, plus (at one point) multiple weekly language exchange meet-ups and TV-watching dates. These days, almost all of my socialising involves friends coming over here for lunch or dinner/TV. My sole remaining regular lunch-date-in-town friend moved away last year but has been commuting, so we've met up roughly every second week. But she's just taken a job nearer her new place. I still see people a reasonable amount, but soon I won't have regular reasons to leave the house anymore. I may need to do something about that...

Some bad attacks by middle-of-the-night brain weasels lately. Bah!

House
My IKEA shelves arrive next week. I'm trying to plan how to organise things so I don't just stuff them full and close the door. Maybe I should watch some home organisation youtube videos? *loses half an hour* Oops!

Language Learning
I'm still going on Duolingo and Hello Chinese. The former has given me 30 days of free Premium (I can say, 我的爸爸不去中文书店和韩国饭店，你的爸爸呢？-- though, ha, when I came back to it, I didn't recognise the characters for bookstore or restaurant, despite knowing the pinyin.) With Hello Chinese, I'm still on the free option, so I mostly practice the 10 most commonly used characters (这是和不在有一的了人) and 一 to 十) and take the pronunciation quiz. (Typing is still a work in progress, but I'm getting there.) Question: is vocal fry part of 3rd tone? It seems really common, especially when people are enunciating clearly.

NZ politics, argh
( Cut to spare you. )

Good things
520 Day, woohoo! The weather has been conveniently mild. I made lemony fish pie on Friday; it was yum. Imminent new pillow and shelves (both in transit). My car actually started on Friday. A friend is lending us an EV to go up the coast and have lunch with my parents.

Another one gleaned from maevedarcy. I did this a few days ago and then felt weird about posting it because of the number of non-answers. But hey.


My concerts!!!
My first concert was: Billy Joel at Athletic Park. I was sixteen, and the bass was so loud I could feel it thumping in my ribcage.
My first music festival was: n/a
My last concert was: probably Sophie and The Realistic Expectations, more than ten years ago. I don't go out much.
My next concert will be: n/a
The artist/band I've seen the most times is: Sophie and The Realistic Expectations, I'm guessing. (My ex (even then, my ex) was in the band and the covers were great, so I went to quite a few of their gigs.)
A concert I wish I could have gone to: n/a. I did enjoy being across the city from an Ed Sheeran concert, on a warm still night, and being able to make out through the open window what song he was playing.
A concert that meant a lot to me: Ani DiFranco at the James Cabaret in Wellington, 2000. It was my second time seeing her, and I was so blown away that afterwards I couldn't speak for about an hour.
A concert that healed me somehow: n/a
If I could re-live only one concert I'd choose: Ani DiFranco at the Powerhouse in Auckland, late 1990s. Partly because afterwards we swam at Red Beach, and there was phosphorescent algae in the sea. A magical night. (Runner up: Melissa Etheridge at Queen's Wharf in the late 1990s; I think I'd appreciate her more now.)
A concert that I'm glad has been preserved by the internet: n/a
An artist I would have loved to see in concert: no strong opinions on this. I avoid crowds, and though experiencing a performance live can be a thrill, I glom onto songs more than artists. ETA: Oh wait, I think Gin Wigmore would be a blast, especially in a smaller venue. Her voice is outstanding.
An artist whose concerts I just don't miss: n/a

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.