#MirdMusings

[clevermird]

had a super disappointing experience this evening

There's a restaurant in my neighborhood that opened about six months ago. My husband and I went there shortly after it opened and it was pretty good - not great, but the food was tasty enough for the price and the service was friendly. We were excited to have them in the neighborhood and hoped they did well.

This evening, we had some friends over and decided to grab dinner and I suggested that restaurant because we hadn't been there in a while.

Friends, it was terrible. The food was bad, the service was bad, they'd started charging for glasses of water. . . I was so disappointed and annoyed, especially since the other suggested dining options are places I've been many times and know would have been good.

[clevermird]

Having been in a LDR with (and now married to and living with) someone who lived in a city I’d never even heard of before we got together, I can personally attest the truth of this statement.

Pretend, for example, that you were born in Chicago and have never had the remotest desire to visit Hong Kong, which is only a name on a map for you; pretend that some convulsion, sometimes called accident, throws you into connection with a man or a woman who lives in Hong Kong; and that you fall in love. Hong Kong will immediately cease to be a name and become the center of your life. And you may never know how many people live in Hong Kong. But you will know that one man or one woman lives there without whom you cannot live. And this is how our lives are changed, and this is how we are redeemed.

What a journey this life is! Dependent, entirely, on things unseen. If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earth quake, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win.

—James Baldwin, The Price of the Ticket

[clevermird]

It's always weird and awkward finding out that you've supported/promoted a person or project that you really shouldn't have. I don't typically feel guilt for having done so as I understand that I was acting in good faith with the information I had at the time

The question is more "what do I do about my endorsements?"

If I already told people to buy the book, I can delete the post where I said to buy the book, but I can't retroactively un-tell people to buy it. So I find myself stuck between "tell everyone that you changed your mind and why" (draws more attention to Thing and potentially starts drama if whatever issue made you withdraw your support was small-scale enough that the person/thing you endorsed will find out about it) and "just delete the posts where you tell people to do it and never mention it again" (feels vaguely deceptive and also doesn't warn off anyone who I previously told should support Thing)

[clevermird]

Which author should I binge when I finish with Robin McKinley?

Being low-key tempted to go with L.M. Montgomery, but I could be tempted into a lot of things. . .

[clevermird]

I bought some American Girl doll stuff on ebay and now the site keeps trying to sell me reborn baby dolls

[clevermird]

I saw this and decided to do just that!

Today has been a frustrating day with a nice end. Slept well last night for the first time in a while. I hate to say it because it sounds terrible, but I actually kinda enjoy the night or two every week that my husband has overnight shifts because he snores very loudly and I always wake up feeling far more rested when he's not there.

I woke up to a happy surprise (I have a job interview next week!) and a sad surprise (I need to call the unemployment office because there's some missing paperwork that could interfere with my ability to get said job if I don't turn it in). The people at the unemployment office are often rude and I don't speak the local language all that well, so my husband called for me and we waited on hold for 45 minutes. But it was worth it because it turns out that the issue will be easily sorted and that I should be recieving way more services from the unemployment agency than I have been, which felt very validating and I might even be getting money and/or access to education that I didn't have before very soon!

After that, I ate lunch (some brie and green apples on a french roll) and then Husband and I worked on building a shelf. We're trying to convert an underused hall closet into a pantry space and the shelving unit is the main feature of that.

After that we were hot and sweaty and tired and frustrated, so we decided to treat ourselves by taking a long walk in a local park and finishing off with milkshakes. Now we're back and I'm working on a drawing. Will probably start dinner soon (sausage and oven-roasted potatoes, nice and simple) and then maybe play Rogue Trader.

I love it when women on my dash post detailed accounts of their day. We are literally in the same room right now and you’re telling me about your day over a cup of iced coffee

[clevermird]

After having read several half million word fanfics on AO3, I think I understand the appeal that Dickens and Hugo had for their readers better.

[clevermird]

Being autistic is dumb sometimes

Have a text I need to send someone - nothing dire at all, just a response to a text they sent me earlier. I asked them for a book recommendation, they responded with one, and I needed to say "thank you, also I've read one of the books you recommended and it was great!"

I knew exactly what I wanted to say. Had the whoel thing typed out in my head.

And then proceeded to spend 2 hours staring at a wall and refreshing reddit over and over because it felt so overwhelming to actually do the work of typing out the text and sending it.

Becuase what if they respond and then I have to come up with another response? And that's overwhelming and scary.

I did finally send the damn text, but it was very stupid.

[clevermird]

I was tagged by @dandelionsandderivatives to list six books I want to read this year!

You are in luck, because I plan my reading very carefully. I think it was more trouble to select just six than it was to figure out what I want to read, but here goes!

I tried to pick stuff I thought would be interesting to talk about instead of just "what's next on my tbr pile".

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly - part of my ongoing classics-reading project. I read this one as a teen and I recall not caring for it, but I'm interested to see if it's better now as an adult with more cultural and literary context. I guess even if it isn't, at least it's not super long.

Battle Ground by Jim Butcher - I've been reading the Dresden Files series for a couple of years now, and I hope to get caught up this year so I can stop avoiding spoilers and be ready when the next book comes out (whenever that is). I'm still a few books back from this one, but I hope to get here, so this is the one I'm listing

First and Only by Dan Abbnett - I've heard @bastardsunlight talking about how much they love Gaunt's Ghosts for a long time and I think 2025 will be the year I finally see for myself

The Spirit Thief by Rachel Aaron - I'm going to need something to read when I'm caught up on Dresden, and this was something I randomly found in a bookstore and decided to check out. I picked it because it was a series and author I'd never heard of before and I wanted to get out of the rut of "what's popular" reccomendations

Into the Wild by Erin Hunter - Warrior Cats was my favorite thing when I was a kid and although I suspect that it won't hold up as an adult, I'm feeling nostalgic and in the mood to revist. It's amusing to look back and see the very obvious Warrior Cats to World of Darkness and Warhammer pipeline so there's something appealing in going back to where it started

Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews - I'm morbidly curious, that's really all there is to it

Tagging @theevilscribbler, @knamil, @kmlaney, @jin-prince-of-sol, and @redstairs - and of course anyone else who wants to, I just didn't want to tag everyone possible!

[clevermird]

Today has been an exciting day

I entered a fandom exchange for the first time a few days ago (I've done events, but never a classic exchange before) and the matchups will go out within a couple days

Also, I found out that the Kindle that a few family members teamed up to buy me for Christmas will be here soon

And I finally have enough money saved to buy a commission I've been saving up for!

[clevermird]

an unanticipated side effect of naming a pet after a character from a fandom in which I am also active is that it has resulted in a lot of bizarre conversations in which people have had to try and work out if I mean the character or the animal

Sometimes it's obvious ("MARAZHAI! Stop licking your sister's butt!") others not so much

[clevermird]

No matter how many times it happens, I'm still blown away when I finish a book I like and am just on a high for a few days. Like. Someone had an idea and told a story and now I read it and I can feel a little bit of the hype that they felt that made them go to the work of writing out a whole story.

[clevermird]

I have a few friends (both real-life and internet) for various fandoms and interests that I can send stupid posts to in order to go “look a this. Isn’t this stupid?”

Helps a lot to avoid getting into pointless drama, even if the temptation is really strong sometimes.

The proverb is good, too

Whenever I get tempted to engage with fandom drama, or stir the pot just to upset some people who annoy me, I catch myself and remember a supposedly African proverb I was once told.

It roughly translates to:

"if a madman steals your clothes... just let him go. For if you chase after him naked, no one will be able to tell who is the madman between the two of you."

I repeat this to myself like a mantra.

Sometimes, it even works.

[clevermird]

writing book reviews is an interesting bell curve. If a book is really good, it's often hard to say much beyond "this book is super awesome, go check it out!" and if it's really bad, my review often boils down to "it sucks, don't waste your time". It's in the middle space, where a book is overall good but with some glaring flaws, or lackluster but with some under-explored potential, where I wind up with essay-length thoughts.

I guess it's because nuance leads to wordcount, but it's still an interesting thing to observe

[clevermird]

I'm really struggling with some end-of-life choices regarding a pet and what the future holds in that department. Would appriciate some prayers/well wishes/whatever you offer tonight.

[clevermird]

it's days like these that I'm very grateful that I have a husband who's just chill with me going nuts about a particular fictional character and sending him multiple images and fanarts per day. I feel like a lot of people would be annoyed by this and he does not seem to be.