#which is funny because I loathe Robert Moses with all my being

[dietraumerei]

Weekly Writing and Reading Update

Hello, the start of the Long Dark is upon me, which means I just want to sleep and read and then sleep some more in my dark little apartment. I'm not unhappy, just...restful. Which is great, but also I need to go grocery shopping and just, ew. Work was also exhausting this past week, so I am hoping the coming week is better, and I will feel like getting up and about a bit next weekend. (Also I'm getting a tattoo done next Sunday, so that'll be cool to look forward to!)

All of which is to say that in all ways but physical I am a small piece of moss on the forest floor, and I'm not mad about it.

Writing

Honestly I did nothing this week. It feels like overkill to say I burned out, but I simply...did not want to write, so I didn't. My mojo is starting to creep back, but it was awfully nice to just read the New Yorker of a morning.

That said, I finally posted the first chapter of Yet Another New AU, and I'm really pleased with this ranging story. I think I'll post updates once a week or two; I want to take my time writing this, and it's been nice feeling like I have time to proofread and rewrite as I go; I already had to start over once because I accidentally made Dily unlikeable, lol.

Anyway, here it is:

Beginnings

Reading

I finished When the Angels Left the Old Country after @lesbrarian recommended it and it might be my favorite book I've read this year? Top five, certainly -- it's tense and beautiful and funny and full of love and very Jewish, and it just filled me with joy to read, even the sad parts. The comparisons to Good Omens are unavoidable, but really I find it a very different story in a lot of ways, although certainly with connections. I adored it, and it's one of those books I can't wait to re-read. Also every time I think about the angel too much I want to cry, but in a good way.

I also -- finally, after many breaks -- finished The Path the Power, the first volume of Caro's LBJ biography. Oh my god, this book. THIS BOOK. The next time I do this I'm going to update every week on what I learned that week because there is just so much in this tome. I want to visit the Pedernales, but not in summer. The description of grass-growing was riveting. The descriptions of the lives of the farmwives before electrification was riveting (and horrific). The play-by-play for elections in the forties literally kept me up past my bedtime. And I have not even touched on Pappy O'Daniel (a real person!! who was apparently toned down CONSIDERABLY for O Brother Where Art Thou) or Lady Bird or how Caro more than once makes sure to mention that Johnson had a dumptruck ass.

Anyway, Lyndon was a vote-buying absolute fucking weirdo from birth and his mother was just as weird and his father was fascinating and I'm a little in love with Sam Rayburn. Do not let either the Old White Man History or the fact that this book is a fucking doorstop stop you, this is a masterpiece and I see why it won a Pulitzer. (whoops, looks like it was another volume that won the Pulitzer) I cannot wait to read the other volumes, which I estimate will take me about a year per book, but worth it!