The Gang

Contemplating taking up chair yoga at home. All I need is my chair which I bought for the peddler that I got rid of. I don't know what it is about December and the Christmas season that seems to instill me with anxiety and depression - often at the same time. I'm fighting both at the moment.

Called the optometrist to find out what the status was on my contacts, which I'd ordered way back on November 8. I left two messages.

Optometrist: We didn't order any contacts for you.
Me: Yes, you did. Either that or it was an incredibly expensive exam.
Optometrist: Let me check - oh, wait, yes, we did. (flustered). My mistake. Sorry about that. I'll look into it and get back to you.
ME: Whew. You had me worried. Considering I ordered them way back on November 8 - they should be ready by now, that was over a month ago.
Optometrist: Yes, yes, we're so sorry. We'll get back to you.

How much you want to bet that that order hadn't gone through in November or they stupidly gave it to someone else and now have to order them again? Thank god, I have enough for another two-three months.

People are stressing me out. Work is always stressful at this time of year - our fiscal year ends in December, so there's this mad rush by all the idiotic procrastinators to send work my way. (I don't procrastinate at work, elsewhere yes, but not at work.) Honestly, sometimes I wish I could take off sometime around November to some exotic island somewhere, and not return until March 30. Solves the seasonal depression issue, and the anxiety issue. I am prone to seasonal depression because I need sunlight and blue skies. Drab, gray, rainy skies make me hurt and depress me. Hence the reason I don't live further north than NYC, nor in the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, or Canada. I don't mind darkness at night? But I need sunshine.

**

Buffy S5 Rewatch ( Buffy is my mental health/comfort series, particularly the later seasons. I don't know why exactly? But something about it comforts me when I get stressed, frustrated or depressed. More than anything else. It's one of those things that you either get or you don't?)

The Replacement - Season 5, Episode 3. The first three episodes spend a lot of time setting the stage for what is coming, and setting up the characters, also depending on the previous year - placing the characters in either a good spot or a bad one. You can always tell how the season will end, based on where everyone is in the beginning of the season. If a character is isolated from everyone in the beginning of the season - they won't be at the end for example? Or if a character is happy, and in a relationship, and seemingly doing great - they won't be at the end. They also set the tone and the theme. It's pretty clear by the time we get to this episode that this season is about duality.
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Book Meme

1. Still reading "The Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem" - which is spending way too much time developing a romance between a newspaper owner and a police inspector, and not enough time on the friendship between two female journalists, investigating the murder, and well the promised mischief and mayhem. I may jump over to the Ill-Manner Ladies Guide to Utter Ruin Book 2 instead. Or Gideon The Ninth.

2. Am making more headway listening to the Paul Newman memoir - which is all the transcripts of all the audio recordings. (Newman burned the audio recordings in a fit of self-revulsion and embarrassment (he was a private man, and not comfortable talking about himself), but, alas they were all transcribed by his best friend a year or so prior to the burning and his kids found them a few years after both he and his friend died, and after much hemming and hawing, decided to publish them in a book - they also gave them to the actor and director Ethan Hawk (for reasons that I fail to completely understand) to make a documentary. This by the way proves that I'm wrong about why Hawk didn't delve into Paul's relationships with his family and siblings and the Sporting Goods Store. It wasn't because he didn't have access or was necessarily forbidden? I think it was because it was already in the memoir and already out there and didn't interest Hawk, the actor and director, all that much? Actors and Directors tend to be somewhat introspective and self-involved? And like to well talk about their own field more than dysfunctional families and Sporting Goods Stores? Hawk focused on what interested Hawk and ignored everything else.)

I started this after I finished re-listening to Graphic Audio's dramatization of the entire Kate Daniels Magic Series - which is excellent by the way. It has a full cast. Like a movie in your mind.
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1.Could not manage to drag myself to my church today. It was cold and drizzling outside. The trees outside my window still have their leaves though. Did watch the sermon on my television set via You Tube. Once I figured out that I can still watch you tube videos on the big television set - I got hooked. They are free. There's ads. But still free. My tolerance for ads however is not high. But at least the ads don't interrupt church services - because that would be tacky?

The sermon was long and weirdly about combating racism, homophobia and xenophobia in Iowa. ( Read more... )

2. Watching Down Cemetery Road - the other series by Mick Herron, it's not as good as Slow Horses, although in a similar vein? It's British satire/mystery/thriller about the inept British Secret Service. (See people are the same everywhere - they are just as inept in Britain as they are in the US, and well everywhere else, national pride be damned. And British writers make fun of them.)

Emma Thompson is playing a private detective - who is sort of in the Gary Oldman role? With Ruth Wilson in the Jake Lowdon role, an art conservationist in over her head.

The set-up? Sarah (Ruth Wilson), after a building blows up near her house from an alleged gas explosion - she hunts for the little girl who survived the blast. When she gets a private investigator involved - things go a bit south, and she stumbles into more than she anticipated.

3. Inside with Michael Rosenbloom Podcasts (one of the better actor podcasters) interviewed Alison Mack, his former cast mate from Smallville, and former NXIUM cultist. She'd become the second in command. I watched it on Youtube on my television - and damn, it was moving. I cried during it.
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Alison Mack Interview with Michael Rosenbloom

Mack and Rosenbloom reiterate something I've long espoused - which is that people are more than one thing, and people for the most part aren't bad or good, they just do bad or good things? Our society has a tendency to demonize people not their actions. And Mack is right - our society is punitive and based on fear, and manipulates people with fear. I remember a prisoner at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary telling me once that prison was about punishment not rehabilitation. And freeing folks from it - doesn't help, because we don't prep them for the outside world, and we don't provide them with employment.

That's not to say that there aren't people out there that are evil, and have a brain make up that is different than ours - sociopaths and psychopaths...are hard to understand. But even those are capable of good and bad things...it's never simple.

At any rate - it's an interesting podcast, and worth the watch.

[I've not watched the NXUIM documentary (but I know what it entailed), although I think I may have seen the Spieldberg one "Why We Hate".]

***

It's been a quiet day. Did some watercoloring - didn't like the first painting, discarded it, working on another one. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with my paintings at the moment? Right now, just doing them for me.

Dinner was salmon, aspergus, celery and carrots - baked. Yesterday I made chili. This morning, a spinach, onion and feta cheese omelete with grits.
The grits took up the blood sugar.

End of November Mememage

30. Do you have any special plans for December?

Not really? I plan on taking some time off. And getting a PT evaluation next week. Also, maybe getting tickets to Brooklyn Botanical Gardens Light Show.

I don't do much for Xmas - so it's not that stressful for me. I have minimal decorations, and only a few gifts to buy.

Someone on Bluesky didn't understand the holiday, and stated as an immigrant they were struggling with it - why are we celebrating genocide?

Eh, no, that's actually Columbus Day. Which was about two months ago? You've confused the holidays.

Thanksgiving is for everybody - it's when the Pilgrims, immigrants from Europe, who fled for much the same reasons people flee to the US now, celebrated their first harvest after having half the population die out the winter before. The Native American tribe in the area allegedly joined them or so legend has it, history tends to be written by those who never experienced it. It also is a holiday that is in a lot of cultures, just celebrated at different times during the year. Usually, it is celebrated at Harvest Time and in the fall months right before Winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

But mainly, it is a holiday in which people are supposed to take a moment to be grateful for the things they have. And possibly find a way to give to those who don't. (Example giving to good will, donating, spending time in a soup kitchen, etc.) Again, it originated from the Pagan tradition - "Being Thankful to the Gods for the Harvest".

I'm grateful to have all the things that I have, and feel no need to list them off. There's too many to list anyhow. I have a lot to be thankful for this year.

Speaking of being thankful? I baked my little rock cornish game hen, did my green beans and the quinoa, with the dressing for the hen. Lovely little meal. Slice of pecan pie and pumpkin pie with a touch of whipped cream for desert. Was more than happy to be on my own.

***

Touched base with immediate family - which is as unconventional as I am about the holidays.

Bro: Are you a Stranger Things or Football person?
Me: Well, at the moment a Slow Horses person. But yes, Stranger Things. I've neither the patience nor the attention span for football. You?
Bro: Sends me a screen shot of Stranger Things.

I think my mother is the only person in my immediate family who watches football regularly. Although she was enjoying Thanksgiving with friends for the day.

***

Television

* The 99th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was kind of ...tepid? It had only three Broadway show casts, and no real pop headliners. Same floats. And kind of lukewarm in that arena as well. While the Village Halloween Parade grows in volume each year, this one seems to diminish? I gave up on it around ten, after seeing the three Broadway Shows. Just in Time (which was the most enthusiastic), Buena Vista Social Club, and Ragtime. (Note they have space heaters on the stage, and it's only ten-to-fifteen minutes per act.).

* The Materialists - movie on HBO MAX, was briefly in theaters this year. (Didn't do that well, and kind of a blink and you missed it moment - I can see why? It's not a good movie.) It's a romantic comedy satire - written and directed by Celine Song, and stars Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, and Pedro Pascale. And ...it is sleep inducing? I played Mahjong during it on my phone. The acting was very understated, to the point that I thought everyone was talking in monotone?
There were dramatic things that happened? But I couldn't care. It's a satire, and I don't like American Satire. It's about as subtle as a battering ram? And I like my satire subtle and dry like a fine wine.
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* Slow Horses S5 - it is S5. It's good. The second and third episode are hilarious. Slow to start as always, I kind of dozed off in the first episode.

This season the Horses have to help their dumb as toast incel hacker get out of MI5 prison for well...that would be spoiling things.

I admittedly like absurdist humor. And Slow Horses is an example of the type of satire that works for me? Biting, British, and Subtle.

1. Woo-hoo! The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin (The Ill-mannered Ladies Book 2) by Allison Goodman has finally come out and is on sale at Amazon for $2.99 (Kindle Deal). I grabbed immediately. The first book ended on a cliff-hanger. It had been rec'd to me by a college friend who jumps in and out of my life, and resides in DC. We've not seen each other in years, but have corresponded over email during the pandemic, albeit briefly. I decided to send a quick email her way - to let her know it came out and was on sale. She'll probably never get it. But who knows.

Also grabbed The Violin Conspiracy for $1.99 - although this might be an audio book credit? It has violin music!! And if I can listen to violin music along with narration...

It's described as Queen's Gambit but with classical music and violins.

2. John Scalzi shares the Pond Rules from his local nature preserve in Ohio:

"The things you see at local parks...

Do not disturb the pond witch

Also don't ...feed the weretrout, if a hand comes out to beckon you? Walk away and don't look back, and those aren't ducks, run.

Scalzi: You know, I'm not sure I ever really read the Pond Rules at our local nature preserve all that closely before

3. Discovered Vita Mahjong as a new game on my phone - I appear to be good at it? It won't last long. I play puzzle games for about a year, then they want money from me, and I stop playing. Redecor lasted almost ten years, but I had to pay for it, and eventually got tired of it, and tired of spending money on a game that people vote on and is incredibly subjective.

I am not a vidder - hand/eye coordination skills are horrific, and you need good hand/eye to be a vidder. Also I like the puzzle games more? I did play a Grand Prix race track game - but it gave me anxiety, so I stopped finally, also again - rigged? You can play it for free up to a point, then they want you to spend money on upgrading your car in the game.

I swear video games like to nickle and dime me to death, which is why I rarely play them. My mother has jumped from bridge to Mahjong which she likes more. She has her own tiles, own game set, everything. And they play at each other's houses.

4. I got my pies! Got them from Meredith's Bakery at the Farmer's Market. Thanksgiving just isn't Thanksgiving to me without pie.

( pies )

But hey? Pies! I love pie! I look forward to the fall for well...pie! Particularly pumpkin pie!

That and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade - on television. (I won't go watch it - even if it is only forty-five minutes away - it's cold, and I can't see the Broadway show performances well.) NYC is parade happy - we have parades for every single Holiday and even make up occasions to have parades. NYC feels bereft if it isn't having a parade at least twice a month. If it doesn't? Don't worry, it'll find something to replace it with.
Crazy city likes parades.

Well, I also liked the leaves turning colors.

At any rate, kind of glad I didn't try to get them yesterday - got a better deal today. If I'd gotten it at Union or Trader Joes, it would have cost more, and been bigger. Also frozen.