Doing better than I was yesterday, but still not really able to focus enough to write. Dammit.
Fine, I'm doing some reading. Re-reading _Cordelia's Honor_, which I bought when @melanyabelta was in town and we went to the legendary Strand bookstore.
Might try switching to something I haven't already read in a bit, if I feel up to it.
I seem to recall some outcry against #Calibre, the ebook reader, recently. There's no "controversies" section on its Wikipedia page. Can someone remind me what the problem was? Was it something to do with "AI"?
And also, what are we using to read ebooks on Linux Mint these days? Thanks!
Boosts welcome.
Very big, heartfelt thanks to @saposcat, @QuasiTemporal, @JallBarret, @klepsydra, @PentUp, @gahlearner, and @ElyseMGrasso for your all feedback on my "doyenne" poll/issue yesterday. 🙏🏻💖
Not sure what I'll do (among other things, I'm wondering if Jessie would know the word "doyenne" when so many others don't; English was never her strongest subject), but I have lots of good, useful stuff to consider when making that choice. Again, thank you all.
I said last night that the music and lyrics are very recognizably Lin-Manuel Miranda. And that that wasn't a bad thing. To amplify on that: he is a lyrical and musical genius, and he really has a way of writing tunes that immediately make you care about the people associated with them. Within a few bars of each character's introduction, he made me want to see them get the thing they desired. That is no small feat, and he made it seem effortless. 2/9
A few thoughts about _In the Heights_ from last night (I'll CW spoilers, but there will be few of those):
I am very, very glad for every shred of my high-school Spanish that I retain. This isn't just Lin-Manuel Miranda's love letter to his neighborhood, it's also his love letter to Latino-Caribbean immigrant culture. It's mostly in English, but there are at least a few places where knowing some Spanish really helps. 1/9
Too fuzzy to write. Dammit.
Not having much luck focusing on trying to read, either.
Okay, I'll try watching _In the Heights_. It's been in my TBW list for too long.
Sorry for spamming everyone's timeline with so much weird stuff and emoji; I hope it's at least amusing. I don't know what else to do with myself right now.
I am steadfastly resisting the impulse to check the news. I'm pretty sure that would be what Egon Spengler would call "bad".
Oddly, making that horror scale may have helped a bit.
Funny, I'd've thought it'd be the tea.
Tea delivery unit #2 _still_ in progress (because dammit, I keep tying, and "I've only got two hands, Captain, so I cannae stir things into tea while typing!"), but...
Horror levels decreasing.
😐️🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥⬜️⬜️😱
Ooooh, I should do a little horror level gauge! Like:
😐️🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥🟥⬜️😱
Or maybe:
😐️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◻️😱
This one's too spaced-out, right?
😐️◾️◾️◾️◾️◾️◾️◾️◾️◾️◽️😱
And should the "no horror" emoji be 😐️ or 🙂? (Definitely not a larger smile; I just want zero horror, not "things are actually better than just nominal".)
Commencing tea absorption. Monitoring horror levels.
Horror levels... steady. Not rising.
WTFing fuck, why is the inside of my freezer all frosty? 😰😖 I seriously can't cope with this right now.
(I put an ice cube or two in my tea mug before pouring in the steeped tea from the kettle, that way I don't have to wait 5–10 minutes for it to cool down to a drinkable temperature. So I saw the inside of the freezer when I went to get the ice cubes.)
Holy fucking hell, here we are, over an hour later, and I just wrapped up my writing session and took off my headphones.
And what do I hear? Motherfucking sirens! *Still!*
The City That Never Fucking Shuts Up, huh? 🙄
Me 👨🏻🦲: I'll try to get some #writing done tonight.
Brooklyn 🌆: I'm sending out all the emergency vehicles! 🚒🚑️🚓🚨
👨🏻🦲: This can't go on forever. It's not like the entire City's burning down, right?
🌆: Also, all the cars are having massive traffic jams! 🚗🔊🚙🔊
👨🏻🦲: 😖
🌆: Also, some asshole's blasting his music way too loud! And some people with HYUUUGE LUNGS are having an argument on the sidewalk.
👨🏻🦲: Headphones time.
(This is why I haven't tagged AmWriting. AmTrying, sure, but...)
One of those annoying #writing sessions where I spend an hour just researching stuff, trying to figure out a good location for an upcoming scene, and don't advance my word count at all.
The research is important, and useful (albeit quite frustrating on this particular topic!); I don't want to minimize it. But I'd also really like to make progress on my draft.
BTW, I'll definitely CW any spoilers. But seriously, the opening credits aren't even finished yet; so far all I've seen is a black screen with lots of names on it. And then heard a voice-over. This can't possibly be a spoiler yet.
But eventually... yes, for sure.
Oooh, creepy music-box tinkling bell music! Very _Halloween_. I approve.
Wait... is this thing in English? Do I have the right audio track? Am I watching a dubbed version? (I assumed it'd be in Italian, given the director's name.)
Ehhh, I'll keep watching and see if the lips sync up when I can see them. (So far, I've just gotten an English voice-over.)
Okay, finally joining the #MovieClub! Ready to watch _Suspiria_, which I've never seen before.
Basically all I know is:
* It's by Dario Argento, who I haven't seen anything else by
* I understand it's horror, and maybe really creepy, gory, and/or erotic?
Yeah, that's about it. So I'm going in pretty much blind.
Anyway, I think this async movie club is a cool idea; thanks, @Thomas, for doing this!
Some days, I really want different kinds of Likes on here. There's a difference between:
* I like that, it makes me happy!
* I don't actually _like_ it, but I agree it's true
* I'm not even sure if I agree, but it's definitely an interesting point
And then there's the "I've seen your post and I'm thinking of you", and "I've seen your reply, but have nothing more to say."
Anyway, I just ⭐️'d something that I don't _like_, but boy was it accurate.
Hey, folks in #Brooklyn and #Queens, for Indigenous People's Day, youse might want to check out this map of original Native place names and stuff: https://nativelongisland.com/
Canarsie being the name of a Native tribe is common knowledge, right? But I had no idea Rockaway apparently also comes from a Native tribe name!
Anyway, if you need a believable flavor for someone to vape in your works, watermelon seems reasonably popular. Totally plausible.
*Camels, if it matters, and yes, I loved Tom Robbins' _Still Life With Woodpecker_ for a major phase of my life.
† Damn, I think I just dated myself, *hard*.