i let the starlight possess you

Previous poll review
In the spam SPAM spam poll, 52% of respondents only check their spam folder when they're looking for a specific thing, 30% check it maybe once a month, 10% weekly, and 8% daily. (This question was inspired by gmail sending multiple emails in the middle of threads to spam, wtf.)

In ticky-boxes, blanket cocoons and comfort food came second to hugs, 62% to 74%. Judgy koalas came third with 56%. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
I read Courtney Milan's The Earl Who Isn't, which was just as enjoyable at the others in the series. Her kissing and UST are excellent, and I love everyone in Wedgeford.

Bounced off Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield, with prejudice. (That was one of my library books.) The first "chapter" (of three in the entire book) was a blow-by-blow account of working backstage at SNL; the second "chapter" (which I flicked through) was lockdown correspondence. I didn't like either of the characters.

I don't know what I'm reading next. Or listening to on my own. But Andrew and I have about 2.5 hours left in Barrayar.

Kdramas
Oh no, I finished One Spring Night and kind of... went back to the beginning and started it again. With occasional diversions into Something in the Rain (which ha, is by the same writer, as well as having vast numbers of cast members in common, so that explains that). At some point I'll emerge from this Jung Hae In fever dream and start something else.

Pru and I finished Family by Choice (I LOVE IT SO MUCH), and next week we're starting Love Scout (\o/).

Other TV
We're on the final disk of extras for Return of the King, and that'll be it. It's stressful seeing the last-minute absolute chaos behind the scenes, but also kind of magical. Still going on The Pitt, and we've watched a couple of episodes of Dinosaur, a UK sitcom about two sisters, one of whom is autistic. I like it!

Got a few things lined up: new seasons of The Lincoln Lawyer and Dark Winds, more Scavengers Reign, there were probably some other things, idk.

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, some Better Offline, some What Matters Most (chatty general life psychology/advice), Cross Party Lines (local politics), Letters from an American (just a few /o\), Heaving Bosoms (chatty recaps of romance novels, just for something relaxing to put in my ears), Movie Briefs (lawyers talk about law movies, ditto).

Online life
*hugs you all, so much*

...

Writing/making things
My Yuletide treat is at beta at last. \o/ Now I've started in on my Yuletide assignment fic, unfinished at 7k words. I'm imposing a new structure on it to see if that might make it more finishable. No drawing practice.

Life/health/mental state things
Idk, I'm okay. Getting some things done, at least. Getting a fair amount of sleep and exercise. Doing righteous battle with my health insurer. Spending too much time tweaking my new phone to make it behave how I want.

Goals
This week: make a batch of vegetarian dumplings, make a mini quiche in the air fryer. All my goals are food, hi!

Good things
Sunshine. Helpful, supportive people. The 520 Day Guardian Reverse Exchange is coming soon! Kitty. New phone is mostly behaving itself. We went to a delightfully geeky talk about dragonflies.

Previous poll review
In the Fourth walls poll, 68.2% of respondents said "the one-way glass that stops TPTB seeing fannish activity" is important to them; 65.9% said "the one that shields fandom from public/media attention", and 61.4% said "the wibbly-wobby physics-defying thing that means celebs and fans exist in separate universes that just happen to occupy the same space-time". About one in five respondents love ALL the walls.

In ticky-boxes, ballooooooooons and golden sparkles won 54.5% of the vote, coming second to hugs (77.3%), but the other tickies made pretty good showings too. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
I finished Courtney Milan's The Marquis Who Mustn't and enjoyed it very much. Such a kind, good-hearted series with a lovely sense of community and a spark of mischief. I'm looking forward to the next one.

Then I ploughed through one of my randomly selected library books, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman. I found this a delightful read and very moreish. It's voicey, with a distractable, occasionally omniscient 3rd POV scattered with pop culture references. I appreciated it's acceptance of introversion and valuing of alone time. Also, the main character has anxiety, and it didn't really try to fix her.

Andrew and I are still slowly listening to Barrayar by Bujold, read by Grover Gardner.

Kdramas
Juuust enough has happened in One Spring Night that I'm into it. I mean, it's still going around in circles, but I'm most of the way through episode 14, and I'm definitely going to finish. The story relies heavily on respectability, parental authority, and conservative attitudes for its conflict (the leading man is a single dad, OH NO!!), which took me a while to get my head around.

Other TV
Our journey through Middle Earth continues. We're on the second disc of extras for The Two Towers, and the actors seem a bit punchy in their interviews, lol. Other than that, just The Pitt. ♥ (My brother watched a few episodes of The Pitt and said it doesn't have a plot, and I... don't know how to answer that. There are mini-storylines with the patients. The capital-P plot, maybe? such as it is? has kicked in at episode whatever-we're-up-to. I feel like it totally works without a driving plot arc, because there are character/relationship arcs, and rising tension/pacing, and theme. Maybe that's all you need?)

I'm amused that I have three streaming service subscriptions and we're spending so much time watching DVDs.

Audio entertainment
More Better Offline, Tech Won't Save Us (the one about humanoid robots), Writing Excuses, Letters from an American, Pod Save America, Cross Party Lines, Fansplaining.

Online life
From you I have been absent in the spring February, quite a lot. My reading page seems pretty quiet, and I'm still having trouble keeping up; open tabs proliferate (that's the middle line of a haiku).

Writing/making things
I'm subsisting on alibi sentences. My creativity is sitting on a bench somewhere, staring blankly into the sky.

I keep failing to post the meta about adverbs in speech tags because it's so prescriptive, and who am I to say anything?

Life/health/mental state things
I don't know what I'm doing with my life. The world (mostly as presented by the above podcasts) is freaking me out. Yesterday I made fifty chicken dumplings and talked to my brother in NY.

Good things
Dumplings. Creativity is a tide. Sunshine. Grapes. Library books. Black cat lying on the very edge of a sunbeam. Independent media and reporting.