#god works hard but Laura Bailey works harder

[simplysparrow14]

Anyway, Shipper-in-chief Laura Bailey strikes again.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E136 & 137 (May 11, 2021)

Good evening and good night, everyone! Tonight on Talks are Laura Bailey & Sam Riegel. I was seriously hoping for Travis after the oh-so-spooky ending to last week's episode, but we'll make do! Tonight, Sam joins us while exercising on his Peloton (apparently in a full workout program led by Peloton teacher Tunde(?)) in front of a green screen. Boy, this is gonna be a thing, huh?

We're not even to the first question and Sam has already been photoshopped into a carwash. Oh, brother.

How is everyone feeling diving into the Cognouza ward? Laura doesn't want to be there at all. She knew Liam desperately wanted to see it, but she didn't. Neither did Sam: it's like being in someone else's gross bathroom where you really don't want to touch anything. Isn't the whole city a body? Is there an earwax room, Sam wonders?

Dani called that Sprinkle was Artagan waaaay back when. She thought it was either a Hollowed One or the Traveler. Travis and Laura were joking about it at home a while back as well, but she didn't think it was real. Sam assumed Matt just didn't want to retcon Sprinkle dying after various adventures & never expected him to tie a plot point to it.

Sam thinks the campaign is winding down & he's trying to get Veth one-on-one time for everyone. Laura is his favorite due to Jester's & Nott's relationship. Laura very much wants to open a real detective agency in game if they both survive this fight.

Laura can't believe Sam is committing to the Peloton bit. "I just had no idea that you were going to do this the whole time. I genuinely thought you were choosing to wear a sleeveless shirt." Sam: "I like that we're at that part in our relationship where you're like, 'well, this is a mistake for him but I'm not even gonna bring it up.'"

If Jester wasn't in a relationship with Fjord, she'd have wink-wink'd at Charlie.

Veth on Devexian: she's very drawn to confidence and sexy voices. There are no men in the M9 who check those boxes. Jester: "Fjord is very tall, dark, and handsome!" Sam: "Yeah, but he's got those little stick arms!" Brian points out that Yasha is the most tall, dark, and handsome of the group, and Sam laments that he already tried that too. She's not going to sleep with the robot, but she can appreciate beauty.

Laura starts to tell us about the Shape of Water while talking about Devexian's functionality and makes THAT GESTURE, YOU KNOW. She then collapses with laughter at being shy about it. She tells Sam Jester isn't shy at all and draws all sorts of humanoid species dicks.

They both agree the powers Caleb & Beau have right now are awesome but will 100% come back to bite them. Sam thinks the 3/9 eyes means there's a 1/3 chance Molly can control them.

Once Molly takes them over, they both agree Beau must be killed first. "She could kill all of us in a heartbeat."

Cosplay of the Week: kairiceleste on Instagram with an amazing Caleb. Great fire photoshop as well! Brian pulls the digital CR gift card off a genuine Bafta. These kids, I tell you what.

Jester still wishes they had access to the Wild Magic chaos since it seemed perfectly harmless and only funny. Laura, on the other hand, knows it's a good thing they've left it behind since not all of them are so benign.

Both Sam & Laura are delightedly astonished to remember Veth is still like a foot tall. Sam says he would have been doing an even higher-pitched voice had he known.

Laura feels great about her Parent Trap success. She likes that it was grounded and not fanciful. It was very bittersweet to leave them behind, choosing not to say goodbye. It almost felt like Jester has accepted whatever fate has in store and if something happens to her, she knows that at least someone will take care of Marion.

Right now, Jester feels a stronger purpose than anything to stop the city. It's so hard to marry that serious & driven purpose to Caleb's desire, for example, to explore a room and pick up a piece of paper. She really thinks she did see that vision of the eye that Matt mentioned last episode, contrary to what Matt thinks.

It wasn't as satisfying as Sam had hoped to kill Otis. He wanted to face off in a fair duel and win via superior cunning & scrappiness. "Who knows, maybe Otis will come back to life!" Maybe they can Speak with Dead and Veth can rub it in.

Laura desperately wants to go back and explore the city. It felt like a video game level with a time limit; it killed her that she couldn't take as much time as she wanted to explore. "There was so much loot!"

Sam wasn't expecting the Somnovem to have distinct personalities. Dani has a theory about them being heightened emotions. Sam: "Like Inside Out??" Laura: "Inside Out in the flesh city." There has to be a way to sweet-talk them into helping. Laura never expected that they'd actually land in the city at all.

The only thing that is stopping them now is that Lucien hasn't placed his threshold crest yet. Laura thinks that if he does, the city will go back immediately and--she suspects--the nine Somnovem will rise again in power like gods, and drive the city to destroy Exandria.

Fanart of the Week: gazedraws with a lovely Devexian. Great gold work on the neck and face! Sam: "It would take a while to put a hickey on that, but I could do it."

Brian's entirely imagined neon sign dropping from the ceiling with the gift card is powered (apparently) by Sam's Peloton. Laura complains that the light isn't bright enough because he isn't pedaling fast enough. I can't believe how intricate this has become.

It makes perfect sense for Jester that there is power that comes from belief. She's coming to terms with the idea that the Traveler isn't a god.

All three of them forward-nostalgize about sitting on a couch together. Soon, friends!

They're dying to know about the weapon Veth found. They need time for Caleb to identify it.

Lucien's visible reaction to being called Circus Man has to be a clue from Matt that Molly's still in there. Both Sam & Laura are convinced that they can reach Molly somehow if they can just say the right thing. They are determined to try to get Molly back before Travis just kills Lucien. Laura wonders if they're going to encounter the consciousnesses of Yussa and Molly somewhere in the city.

Sam and Laura think they have good odds against Cree, even with legendary actions. Sam's sure there will be some wrinkle to either make the fight harder or delay them in the fight against Lucien. Laura suggests splitting the party. Brian: "You should be careful splitting the party; without Caduceus, there's no healing!" Laura: "...that's true." Sam thinks that Cree will be able to control Beau or Caleb (or other party members) with the blood vials she took so long ago.

Sam has gone 14.1 miles on the Peloton. What a nice workout!

And that is that is that! Is it Thursday yet?

[newstfionline]

What’s a delightful way to get more time out of the day? Savoring

Laura Vanderkam, Ideas.Ted.com, June 12, 2018

Feeling like you’ve got all the time in the world is a wonderful sensation; too bad it occurs so rarely. But by developing the skill of savoring, you can maximize your moments--and your experience of time, according to author Laura Vanderkam.

People who feel like time is abundant approach the present in two ways. There’s the practical: they learn to be where they’re supposed to be in enough time that they can relax. Then, the more daring psychological feat: they find ways to savor the space of time where they currently are.

Actively savoring the present stretches your experience of time. To savor is to feel pleasure, and also to appreciate that you are feeling pleasure. It takes normal gratification and adds a second layer to it: acknowledgment. That this appreciation expands time can be understood by thinking of the opposite. When you want time to pass quickly, you might wish yourself elsewhere. When you want to prolong something, you hold yourself right where you are.

The richest experiences of savoring involve an awareness of the past and the future, as well as the present.

The concept of savoring turns out to be a critical component in the field of positive psychology. Intriguingly, the richest experiences of savoring involve an awareness of the past and the future, as well as the present. In their book Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience, researchers Fred B. Bryant and the late Joseph Veroff share Bryant’s account of summiting the 14,000-plus-foot Snowmass Mountain in Colorado.

He was in awe of the physical grandeur, of course. But he also knew he’d likely never be there again, so he did more than enjoy the view. He embraced his friends and told them how happy he was to share this moment with them. He looked back into the past, recalling a back injury that had almost ended his climbing career. He let his mind go to a time when he thought he would never experience this moment. “The realization that it is here now intensifies my joy,” he thought.

Bryant projected himself forward into the future and thought about how he might look back on this memory. He thanked God for enabling him to be there, and for creating mountains to climb. Then with “a strong sense of the fleetingness of the moment” and a desire “to remember this moment” for the rest of his life, he made special efforts to capture the scene. He turned in a deliberate circle and recorded small details: a forest of aspen and spruce, a river below. He noticed how his lungs felt, what he was smelling. He felt the cold. He selected a stone from the summit as a souvenir. He thought of sharing the memory of the mountain with his loved ones and thought of his late grandfather, who also loved outdoor adventures.

Bryant and his companions weren’t on the summit long. But all this savoring made the experience seem more vast than the ten minutes he told me it encompassed. Down off the mountain, he worked with Veroff to learn more about how people savor happy moments.

Scanning the past and imagining the future were intimately part of the experience. “A conceptual model of savoring must consider not only reminiscence, but also anticipatory processes,” they wrote. They produced the “Ways of Savoring Checklist,” which they used to evaluate how different people hold on to experiences.

“There are so many ways to use the mind as a time machine,” says researcher Fred B. Bryant. “Mental time travel is so beautiful and rich.”

For instance:

* You can think about sharing the memory later with other people, or consciously taking in every scent during the event.

* You might remind yourself how long you had waited for this event to happen, or think back to a time when the event hadn’t happened and you really wanted it to.

* You might try to become more alert, take deep breaths, or slow down.

* You might tell anyone else there how much you value the moment and how happy you are that the other people are there with you.

* You could remind yourself that nothing lasts forever. And so, you must enjoy this moment now.

Any good event can be deepened in these doable ways. Bryant, who calls savoring “an acquired skill,” has his own tactics to cultivate savoring. He teaches psychology classes at Loyola University Chicago. In my experience, professors sometimes grumble about teaching undergraduates. Bryant, on the other hand, envisions himself at a nursing home in the future. His health is failing. He can no longer get around on his own. He pictures himself looking back on his life and wishing he could be in front of a classroom again, feeling healthy and mentally alert. Oh, what he would give for just one more day. Then he opens his eyes and realizes, “That’s today!” He doesn’t have to give up anything to get this privilege. This contrast--akin to George Bailey getting his second chance in It’s a Wonderful Life--awakens him to the joys of normalcy. “There are so many ways to use the mind as a time machine,” says Bryant. “Mental time travel is so beautiful and rich.”

By clearing the calendar of what you don’t want to do, you can linger when you’re doing the things you do want to do.

You can also engineer lingering moments. By clearing the calendar of what you don’t want to do, you can linger when you’re doing the things you do want to do. An after-work happy hour can turn into dinner. A planned ten-mile bike ride on an out-and-back trail can become sixteen miles if the weather is nice. I love to create completely open days when all I do is write. I’m off the clock and savoring a project I’m really getting into.

If setting aside a whole day is not possible, try what Bryant and Veroff called the “Daily Vacation Exercise.” This is a compact way to allow you to practice lingering in pleasurable experiences. Each day for one week, plan to do something enjoyable for ten to twenty minutes. Some recent vacations for Bryant have included playing the guitar, composing music, walking his dog and calling an old friend.

Here are a few possibilities for your daily vacation:

* watching the sunset

* sitting outside at a café with a good cup of coffee

* visiting a bookstore on your lunch break

* going for a walk in a nearby park

Choose a time when you can minimize distractions, so put your phone away or in airplane mode. During your daily vacation, per Bryant and Veroff, “try to notice and explicitly acknowledge to yourself each stimulus or sensation that you find pleasurable. Identify your positive feelings, and explicitly label them in your mind. Actively build a memory of the feeling and the stimuli associated with it, close your eyes, swish the feeling around in your mind, and outwardly express the positive feeling in some way.” At the end of the week, recall all seven vacations.

The truth is, we take 10-minute breaks in normal life anyway. We fill this time by deleting emails, we scroll through social media or we putter around our houses, so this doesn’t register as leisure time. Consciously lingering in pleasurable downtime reminds us we have downtime. And that can make us feel like we have more time than when it slips through our hands.

Another way to practice savoring: if you don’t have to move fast, try moving slow. If rushing makes people feel like they lack time for things they want to do, then conscious deliberation can feel like a treat. Bryant reports that in the lab, when subjects are given a chocolate-chip cookie and told to max out on their enjoyment of it, they almost universally slow down. They try to notice each bite fully. He says, “Slowing down makes it last longer. The enjoyment itself is sustained.”

Moving slowly also allows you to pay attention to more things. “Slowing down is a conscious effort, so you’re controlling the experience, and you’re becoming more aware of what’s going on,” says Bryant. This slowness can be as delicious as a savored cookie. I might read a book more slowly if I am enjoying it. While there is pleasure in figuring out how something ends, there is also pleasure in rereading a few sentences of choice prose.

But I wish to stress that not all parts of life lend themselves to slowing down. Sometimes slowness is lingering, and sometimes it’s dilly-dallying. Furthermore, not all situations deserve lingering. By myself I might spend hours in a museum; taking a kid, I aim for an hour and feel lucky if we make that. As the mother of three small children, I know that many ideas for living the good life are harder to implement when you have toddlers. Even if you’re sitting in front of a delightful fire, it is hard to linger in the moment when you’re trying to keep a child from leaping into the fireplace.

Lingering is about enjoying the enjoyable. It’s about understanding you have the power to stretch time when you are in it and when you wish to stretch it. All time passes, and you cannot linger in anything forever. Hedonic adaptation--which is the human tendency to become accustomed to anything--means even a view from the mountaintop becomes the scene out the kitchen window after a while. But for a few minutes, with the right mind-set, it can be more.

Excerpted from the new book Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done by Laura Vanderkam.