Literally the funniest thing I have read about the Heated Rivalry tv show so far (thanks to the Rec Center newsletter last Friday):
"With Hockey RPF the fanfic was for the romance and the sex, the things canon didn't provide. But in Heated Rivalry canon does provide. So logic dictates that the fanfic is there to make them actually play hockey." - (from bluesky)
It's not just me who wants more hockey in the hockey romance!
(Heated Rivalry is still not legally available in the UK; HBO Max is launching in the UK in March, hopefully it'll include the show when it does.)
Meanwhile my Rick Riordan reading adventure has come to the end of the 10 (ten!) books I bought on Kindle a decade ago for no reason I now remember, so I have been wrangling the local libraries to get more. I'm officially off sick today with this stupid cough, and resting / reading a lot.
I could be reading through the large pile of library Riordans ... but no
I could be reading one of the other four library books I have out that are due back this week ... but no
I could read one of the several books I already bought in December ... but no
I could go wild and watch the episodes-so-far of Percy Jackson on Disney+ (challenge my inability to watch anything by myself!) ... but no
I am actually reading a modern AU fanfic of Much Ado About Nothing and vaguely wondering about challenging my inability to watch anything by myself with the Tennant/Tate production
Setting up my last spare brand new iPod Touch - bought new from Apple in 2022, on the day they discontinued the iPod Touch. An iPod Touch is like an iPhone without phoning, and has been perfect for me for many years, given how bed bound and mostly asleep I am now. But the device can't run newer than iOS 15, and its total battery capacity is poor. My previous model now needs recharging 2 or 3 times a day. So it's time to pull out the last spare. In future I'll have to switch to an iPhone, but that's for a few years down the line. Meanwhile iOS 15 does what I need. And a new model should run for some years yet.
If I’ve been a bit slow on the uptake, I suppose I can blame this lingering lurgy. It’s been two weeks and I’m still lethargic and very conscious that I’m not yet well. I’m better, I think, than I was on Advent Sunday, when I was cold and wobbly and wondering what on earth was wrong with me; certainly better than last Friday, or this Monday; but still not entirely well.
Some friends observed recently that in these days of antibiotics and painkillers (both undoubted benefits to the world at large, let me be clear) we’re stumped by minor illnesses whose symptoms persist. I couldn’t take antibiotics for a cold, and, while I was glad enough of paracetamol and pseudephedrine when my head and ears were aching and I couldn’t breathe without thinking about it, there’s been nothing to be done with the fatigue. Except, of course, waiting. A hundred years ago that would just have been the way things were. You’d have to give your immune system time to do its job, you wouldn’t be able to dose yourself up and power on through.
This year I’ve been reading, very slowly, Kathleen Norris’s The Noonday Demon, in which she examines the cardinal sin/bad thought (depending on which theologians you ask) of acedia. This concept has some overlap with the clinical condition of depression, and is often translated as ‘despair’, but, Norris seems to argue, is perhaps best interpreted as the desire to be somewhere other than where you are. This resonated, often when the toddler just wouldn’t go to sleep, but at other times too.
And recently I picked up Ross Thompson’s Spirituality in Season, in which he talks about three kinds of ‘abyss’, or exclusion:
First, there is exclusion from God, which because God embraces us always, can only be self-wrought; this is sin, leading to hell. Second, there is exclusion from life and being, which by definition is death. And third there is exclusion of our fellow human-beings, which in much of the teaching of Jesus… seems to be equated with the judgement; we are already judged, it seems, by our own response to our neighbour in need.
Then he draws a contrast between the two penitential seasons of Lent and Advent, noting that in Lent we actively confront this abyss (because, as he says, it’s all the same thing) while in Advent we ‘vulnerably experience their great danger, before experiencing at Christmas the one who saves us’.
And then he goes on to talk about waiting, using the example of waiting for a bus. We wait for something (or someone) over whose arrival we have no control at all.
(Here, I would add, we have two options: we can watch, or we can seek distraction. I’m very conscious that lately – the last few months, maybe longer – I’ve been seeking distraction. I’ve been very reluctant to face the inside of my own head, or heart. Too tired. And it’s going to hurt. Maybe. That might or might not be what’s going on. I need to look at that too.)
I read this… in November, if not October. I gleaned some useful facts for my O Antiphons workshop. I noted the reference to W. H. Vanstone’s writing on passivity in the events of Holy Week, which I have also read, and found useful.
And then I spent the first ten days of Advent absolutely hating where I was, furious that I didn’t have the energy to engage in anything that felt like a meaningful observance. And not being able to prepare for Christmas, the sacred or the secular versions, either.
And then it clicked. Waiting. I’m waiting. I’m waiting to feel better. I have very little control over how my body deals with this illness; even my capacity to do nothing is limited. This is, or could be, more meaningful than any Advent devotional book, could teach me more than any twenty-four windows I could open. This is a particularly immersive way to experience waiting, and, therefore, to observe Advent.
Has it helped? Immensely. If nothing else, laughing at my own failure to get it improved at least a couple of days last week. And not at all. Today, for instance, I wrote, I am losing sight of the concept of anything getting better. (And about three minutes after I wrote that, it did.) But that’s the way it goes. If I’d assimilated this brilliant new insight immediately, discovered how to embrace my enfeebled physical state as a symbol of my mortal human state, and glided up to new heights of spiritual consciousness I’d have missed the point, wouldn’t I?
Almost nothing has happened today, but that gives me a chance to talk about everything else that happened yesterday, hopefully before I forget.
I woke up and actually managed to get the train and tram to lift club. The last couple times I'd tried to make it there on public transport hadn't worked out, so it was nice to be able to make it. Especially because it's the last one of the year! At the end I gave George a hug that he said was so good it changed his life. "I'm a very enthusiastic hugger!" he said. "People aren't usually able to meet my energy!" But I guess I did. I love George, even if he does put me on a pedestal a little bit sometimes.
I got a lift home, with had the usual good chats with my pal D. I went right to Teddy's house to walk him, because our usual evening-walk had been swapped to morning walk this once. So this was not only the day that his human, Graham, was having his knee operation, he was having it as we were walking! I let Teddy lead me around the neighborhood for as long as I could but I had a big list of things to do so had to drag him home eventually. I had a good catch-up with Sylvia -- her sister was there, who is so effusive about how much of a help my household has been, aww -- but did have to scurry home so I could have a shower and be on to the next thing.
The next thing was D and I going most of the way to Liverpool to help a relative of V's who's cleaning out his mum's house. We've done this a few times and it's nearly done now. He'd saved me some apple-shaped dishes that I'd coveted the first time but left there; when I was looking through photos of the year for something parent-suitable I saw the photo of these dishes that I'd sent V in order to squee about them, and I was really sad that I hadn't taken them after all. I didn't expect them to have been put to one side for me but since they were I figured it was a sign and eagerly brought them home. They were greeted when I got here by angelofthenorth who recognized them immediately and has a couple herself. It was nice to feel so validated in that decision!
D and I spent a long time at the recycling center, separating stuff out into the appropriate bins. I was stymied by what to do with all the food: all the half-finished bags and jars that a well-stocked home cook had -- the jars all labeled neatly and everything. It was sad to have to get rid of it all. In the process I cut my finger on a bit of broken glass and had to ask the staff for first aid: one employee shouted to another in the scousest accent I've ever heard: "Alex! This man needs to wash his hands! He's got an injury!" They also gave me a little wound-cleaning wet wipe and a band-aid so it was okay.
I got home and needed a nap because we were going out again that evening. To see Karkasaurus and Petrol Bastard, which was such fun even if there was so much dry ice I could taste it and it felt like I was in beginning-of-horror-movie levels of fog. And like I said D got his Loop earplug stuck in his ear, but V got it out today so that's worked out okay. We ran into a number of people that we know there, from different things -- sign of a good gig -- and might have been led astray for a completely extraneous pint afterwards, by this person and her girlfriend and their Welsh friend. Said person continues to be delightfully tactile around me in a way that usually doesn't get to happen absent some romantic or sexual interest, and it's utterly delightful.
And then we left them to their reckless ways and got an uber home just before midnight which is why I didn't have time to talk about all of this in yesterday's blog post!
I did well to be feeling as okay as I am today; I think the fact that I continue to get insomnia when I'm drunk, which at least means I can drink water while I'm awake, keeps the hangovers from being as bad as I've been led to expect in my forties!
After the (amazing!) support act Karkasaurus, we went back to the bar and the first thing D said was "I have got to improve my cardiovascular fitness." (I wasn't expecting this at all, so I burst out laughing.)
His ear plug came apart when he tried to take it out, and it's still stuck in his ear. I got to put a teaspoon of olive oil in his ear now that he's in bed, which might help it find its way out. Protecting your hearing is important, but what a nuisance this is!
I'm binge-watching M*A*S*H and I have to say one of the things I love about Hawkeye is how completely unstoic he is. If he's in any kind of pain, or even just discomfort, he pouts and whinges and bitches and shrieks. You could never write in-character fanfic where he heroically keeps silent about his injury before passing out. If Hawkeye was bleeding out, the whole of Korea would know about it.
Belatedly watching episode 1 of The War Between the Land and the Sea. And just had a St Andrews University passing reference, though it’s a little bit confused. Should be normally 4 years not 3. That will only make sense to folks who watch it, and preferably also studied a Scottish undergraduate degree. I was offered direct entry to second year CS at my course choice meeting at the start of first term. So could easily have taken just a 3 year BSc(Hons) rather than the usual Scottish 4. But I decided to stick with the full 4 years. A uni friend jumped straight into second year CS, but it is an unusual thing to do at St Andrews.
Answering an anonymous poll on the intfiction forum. The answers in this question don't range far enough back 😜 I first played - and became interested in - interactive fiction back in December 1980, 45 years ago this month. Colossal Cave Adventure on an Apple II borrowed over Christmas.
I'm going to go with one that I saw one of my favorite reactors, Roscoe, react to this morning, "Save Me" by BTS. (He actually reacted to it some time ago, but there's a "Roscoe reacts to BTS video marathon going on and I dropped in just in time to see the music video from their early days, and to listen to the song.)
The tune has an extremely catchy hook, and I'm impressed by the fact that both the camera operator(s?) and the group members were working on ground that was partly shifting sand and still managing to both sing and dance (with some pretty complicated choreography) during a number of single-shot camera works.
I didn't enter Kpop via BTS, the way so many people, including those I've met through the Couch Crew discord community, did. I enjoy their music when I hear it, but I'm not Army (the name of BTS's fandom). Despite that, I can appreciate a well-written tune and some smart choreography, even when it's obvious the group and the producers didn't have much money which with to work. So here you go.*
* I thought about using "Spring Day," which was part of the reaction marathon, but it's pretty intense, with regard to its subject, and I didn't want to put that into the post.
Also, here's a link to Day 13 which in itself has a link to the previous 12 meme answers.
I have finally put in my I-90 application for a renewal of my Green Card into to Citizenship and Immigration, along with the $415 it costs to start the process. That's a lot of money I could do a lot of things with, but I need to remain legal in this second country of mine, so one bites the bullet when one has to. Sigh.
I'm happy, though; I'd been putting this off because for some reason I had convinced myself that it was going to be a lot more difficult than it was. Somehow, I geared myself up enough to tackle the job and - surprise - it wasn't all that difficult. There are further things that I'll probably have to do; get my picture taken again, since the picture on my current card was taken a decade ago, and possibly have some biometric information taken. I don't know if all of that will involve further money heading the goverrnment's way, but I wouldn't be surprised.
The one thing that truly disgusted me when I went to the CIS home page on the .gov website: up at the top, in very gaudy gold, was an advertisement for That Man's credit card. I fucking kid you not. I have no words.
Still, I did what I'd been putting off. I adulted! Huzzah!
I don't know how many people in my Dreamwidth circles are from OG science fiction fandom; those who are there may know this. Other people, especially those who aren't familiar with OG science fiction/fantasy fandom, will undoubtedly not be aware that the world lost an amazing man last night/the early hours of this morning.
Arthur Hlavaty, one of the most brilliant people it was my honor to know and communicate with, died unexpectedly, leaving his spouse Bernadette Bosky and co-husband Kevin Marony bereft. Even though Arthur was 83 and had been in poor health following a broken hip many months ago, no one expected him to leave this circle of the world so soon. He was Supergee on LJ and on Dreamwidth, where he should still be, dammit.
I am fairly certain that I have known, or at least known of, Arthur since the mid-1990s Usenet days of rec.arts.sf.fandom. When he responded to anything I posted, I was proud of having said something worthy of his notice. I once wrote a defense of good politicians/government officials that he acknowledged might have moved the needle slightly from his mostly cynical view of both. I was quietly over the moon at that immense praise. He was kind, wry, gentle about much of life and merciless about fools. He was very deaf, and thought that popular music ceased being good after about 1966. I occasionally twigged him about that, and he was able to reply in kind. Bob and I were lucky enough to have a meal with Arthur around 2002 during a Minicon. He was as impressive in person as he was on the printed page or pixel.
He was a ... well, the best description of Arthur comes from Arthur himself, although this is also useful. His personal zines Nice Distinctions and Derogatory Reference were two I always was happy to receive in the mail and I treasure his occasional letters to me. Oddly, or sadly, enough, I dug up a Nice Distinctions from my files about three days ago so that I could find Arthur's Bernadette's and Kevin's physical address. I mailed my holiday card to the three of them last night. Less than 12 hours later, he died.
I cried out this afternoon when I read Bernadette's announcement. The world is darker today.
I was so tired after work I had a nap. Didn't notice D texting to say dinner is ready. He came upstairs to see how I was doing...and now is asleep himself.
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