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A post of pandemic life misc:
I am alternately happier than usual and more tired and hopeless than usual. I have almost none of the usual mandatory life structure except engagements over the internet, which are many and delightful, except when I'm tired and hopeless, in which case they're many, aargh! I am unusually emotional about J.E.D.D. Mason, and have to remind myself that major Terra Ignota spoilers are behind not only the reasons why but also the language I could use to talk about it. (Spoilers would be from the first two books, for ye who are saving the third and would be bothered to think I'm referring to it).
I am very pleased to have acquired a large block of white printer paper. It's only since my degree ended that my scrap paper supply has not continually refreshed itself with the flipsides of tutorial handouts and such, and I have enough notebooks that I hadn't thought I needed to get more - but when I look at a blank sheet of paper standing alone, I feel happy, and it's easier to start writing things on it.
I thought it would be a good idea to go to the small steep rise above the local sports field (where there are always dog-walkers and child-walkers to be seen) and put some music on over a speaker, this being the kind of intrusion of what I want to listen to into public space which I'd usually shy away from -- but this seemed a time when it might fall into the category of 'small cheerful things met with while walking' in which I have recently seen people dancing in the parking lot of the retirement home next door, adults commending young children for sneezing correctly, etc. The first song that started playing was Vienna Teng's 'Aims.' I went 'no no no, avert' and reached for the pause button just as my phone also realised what I was doing and intervened by running out of data. There will come a season for a song which begins 'Come out. You have been waiting long enough.' This isn't it.
It is strange to be spending this time in a semi-social flat like mine. It is entirely functional without being ideal - but then, 'entirely functional' is a very great thing right now. We are all in our respective worlds a lot. The living room is the domain of Skyrim at almost all times, which would bother be if we didn't have a deck I could sit on. I don't have to spend very long in my bedroom at a stretch before getting a voice in my head saying 'Nothing is strong, much stronger than you.' Against this, I am getting a better sense of the shape of the suburbs I live in, and I actually enjoy the dance of mutual avoidance of people on the streets, it has a kind of attention and politeness to it which feels more communal than just regular old passing within metres of each other does.
The cats grow more ingenious as to what doors they can open and what they will jump on and climb into. This has yet to include the axolotl tank, but they do seem to have plans. The subset of things my flatmates and I all want to do is limited, and our sleep cycles do not match each other well; but we are sharing some shopping, we are sharing some meals, and yesterday we all went to the south coast and sat skipping stones into the sea.
I am alternately happier than usual and more tired and hopeless than usual. I have almost none of the usual mandatory life structure except engagements over the internet, which are many and delightful, except when I'm tired and hopeless, in which case they're many, aargh! I am unusually emotional about J.E.D.D. Mason, and have to remind myself that major Terra Ignota spoilers are behind not only the reasons why but also the language I could use to talk about it. (Spoilers would be from the first two books, for ye who are saving the third and would be bothered to think I'm referring to it).
I am very pleased to have acquired a large block of white printer paper. It's only since my degree ended that my scrap paper supply has not continually refreshed itself with the flipsides of tutorial handouts and such, and I have enough notebooks that I hadn't thought I needed to get more - but when I look at a blank sheet of paper standing alone, I feel happy, and it's easier to start writing things on it.
I thought it would be a good idea to go to the small steep rise above the local sports field (where there are always dog-walkers and child-walkers to be seen) and put some music on over a speaker, this being the kind of intrusion of what I want to listen to into public space which I'd usually shy away from -- but this seemed a time when it might fall into the category of 'small cheerful things met with while walking' in which I have recently seen people dancing in the parking lot of the retirement home next door, adults commending young children for sneezing correctly, etc. The first song that started playing was Vienna Teng's 'Aims.' I went 'no no no, avert' and reached for the pause button just as my phone also realised what I was doing and intervened by running out of data. There will come a season for a song which begins 'Come out. You have been waiting long enough.' This isn't it.
It is strange to be spending this time in a semi-social flat like mine. It is entirely functional without being ideal - but then, 'entirely functional' is a very great thing right now. We are all in our respective worlds a lot. The living room is the domain of Skyrim at almost all times, which would bother be if we didn't have a deck I could sit on. I don't have to spend very long in my bedroom at a stretch before getting a voice in my head saying 'Nothing is strong, much stronger than you.' Against this, I am getting a better sense of the shape of the suburbs I live in, and I actually enjoy the dance of mutual avoidance of people on the streets, it has a kind of attention and politeness to it which feels more communal than just regular old passing within metres of each other does.
The cats grow more ingenious as to what doors they can open and what they will jump on and climb into. This has yet to include the axolotl tank, but they do seem to have plans. The subset of things my flatmates and I all want to do is limited, and our sleep cycles do not match each other well; but we are sharing some shopping, we are sharing some meals, and yesterday we all went to the south coast and sat skipping stones into the sea.
