lizardjay

This time of year is always such a slog. I keep forgetting things that only happened days ago, and yet winter is so long?? You'd think if none of it registers it would go faster....

But anyway!! I had the day off due to snow! So here is a post. Be warned: there are a lot of pictures in it :D



This pic is as of 4PM, it's been snowing since noon, and it's supposed to keep going until 6AM O_O

Contents:

1. pseudo-art and photos (including cats)
2. reading
3. TV/anime
4. (bought) stuff
5. AMVs
6. RL
7. food

ART-ADJACENT STUFF AND PHOTOS? IDK THE CATEGORIES ARE LOOSE HERE



If I see one of my cats in this position this automatically comes to mind. Cat with a Pearl Earring. I spent way too much time editing this. (If you are unaware, I am referencing this art.)



And then there is this. They were both sitting symmetrically, how could I not?



I forgot, I made this last month! It looked like she was leaning on a shop counter (instead of reality where she's lounging on the stair landing).

It should be clear at this point that I like to have fun with my cat pictures :D



The deer from the woods came out to eat in our yard! There were five of them I think, and the smaller ones were frolicking and chasing each other.

READING

Going in reverse order, from Right Now to... the summer, honestly.

1. (just borrowed) Emperor of Rome by Mary Beard. A real life nonfiction book, which is RARE for me. It supposedly has details of things like 'how much power did emperors actually have?' and 'their day to day lives' which are the type of history things that I'm actually interested in instead of who's winning battles and everything.
2. (in progress) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. An autobiography, another genre I never touch. I saw it mentioned for Black History Month and picked it up from Gutenberg. It's much more readable (in terms of prose) than I expected from 1861; I would even call it an easy read in that respect. In actual content it is pretty brutal. Jacobs really plainly lays out moments of violence and torture almost next to moments of 'normal life'. I'm about a third through and have had to set it down for a bit.
3. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (reread). This is such a fun book!!! I've been thinking about Nona (the third book) lately, and Alecto is supposed to come out.... eventually... so I picked this back up from the library. People love it or hate it; I was a Homestuck so naturally I love it.
4. Apothecary Diaries vol. 12 by Natsu Hyuuga. I diligently read the light novels as they come out, and they're great fun. I dropped the anime back in the first season to read the books :D though I do want to get back to watching...
5. Firekeeper Series (books 1-3) by Jane Lindskold (reread). I love these so much. Girl! Raised by wolves! Super intelligent wolves! There's magic but not that much! Politics of a level that I can comprehend and that isn't boring! I don't know if these technically count as YA or adult, but they're pretty easy reads and keep up the pace. I need to get back into book 4, which is around where I stopped as a child. There's apparently 6 books!
6. Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh (reread). This was back in the summertime. I inhaled it over like three weeks, and it's over 600 enormous pages. I've never compiled a list but I suspect Cyteen is in my top five books of all time. I've read the entire thing probably five times since the first time in high school. Brief synopsis: Ari Emory, a scientific genius who is also an important political figure, dies. Or is murdered? In any case, her faction can't see a long-term path forward without her. Unlesss... they clone her. And not just genetically clone her, but shape that clone psychologically with similar childhood experiences until she genuinely has the same personality, wants, and drive to continue Ari's work, which no one else understands. The first 1/4 of the book is setup (though it has its own stuff going on too), and the remaining 3/4 is Ari II's story. It's just so good. I love Ari II and her child mind in many of the chapters (she and her friends come up with this whole slang for things like 'the adults exiling people who make Ari II upset or otherwise off track'), and the particular oppressive dystopia is fantastic and something that I draw on anytime I think about surveillance or politics. Also there's chapters where her (child) bodyguards get to practice combat operations. Also I haven't even mentioned the azi, the entire class of clones (or otherwise genetically modified and intentionally produced people) who are programmed from birth and either sold to other entities or working for the facility that made them. I could go on about it for a while but I'll stop there. Read Cyteen.

TV

My Happy Marriage: I fell into this one by chance last season and now season 2 is airing. I find this show so funny in its two halves; one half Domestic Feel-Good Life (will Miyo make a Friend? can she come out of her shell and get along with her obviously smitten Fiance? can she win over the Disapproving Mother-In-Law?) and half... supernatural drama? This aspect didn't come up until episode two by the way, when suddenly the fiance cast a fireball or something and I died of confused laughter. I spend most of the time when the magic plots are happening saying "I don't care about the exploding demons, take me back to the mother-in-law..." but I'm clearly still entertained enough for it to be the only current anime I'm following every week.

Hunter x Hunter: we're nearing the end of the Chimera Ant arc now. What an arc. Parts of it dragged a little, parts of it are inexplicable (the sex/mommy metaphor vore scene that we just watched this weekend???? can't believe they all survived that one tbh), but in general it's been great.

Something I really enjoy about HxH is its intense appreciation for planning. In the shonen that I've seen (certainly not a super broad selection...), they're often making battle plans and stuff, but they're normally pretty simple things. I wouldn't say the HxH plans are especially complex either, but they get a LOT of screentime for things like "five seconds after you go left, we will make a run for the stairs" or whatever. There's attention given to who has cell phones and who does not and how people can contact each other. This is very much on display in this arc, since there's so many people and operations, but it was present back in Yorknew too. I like it! (Side note, this is why I like a lot of Martha Wells' books so much. She's got that mundane planning DOWN.)

As for the actual plot and events, having JUST entered what I'm presuming is the Gon-centric part of the climax of the arc... I Am Expecting Emotional Pain.

STUFF

Let me be clear, I'm not normally a big shopper... but idk, I've had the disposable money and seen so much nice stuff recently.



First I got some stuff off Etsy. The Kirby pins and postcards are from SuugrStudio. I wanted the pins mostly but got the postcards as well for the shipping discount, and they are DARLING. The shop also sent a couple little extras :)





Then I got these little guys. They are precious T_T I plan to set up little dioramas or something, they're so cute... and put Illumi and Hisoka in jail I guess? Idk. They can have their own scene. Right now they're sitting on little jars and the front four are on a glasses cleaning cloth.

Hisoka unfortunately has a couple marks on him, maybe paint smudges. I got these guys for pretty cheap so I'm not that concerned.

(Purchased from this shop. Honestly I have no idea what their business model is. Do they make this stuff? Resell it from overseas? No clue.)



And then here are my Chao pins (from SinisterCosxArt)! THEY ARE PERFECT. I already put the neutral Chao on my bag but now I'm wondering if I should try and make some kind of clear vinyl cover for the bag if I'm going to be a pin person now...



In non-merch, I got this big yellow blanket and every night since getting it (like two weeks now) I've slept like the dead! I'm not sure if that's because I've been tired, because I am. But maybe I usually wake up a lot because my blankets are smaller and cold air gets in? I am often cold at night and already sleep with two comforters and a fluffy throw blanekt. This new blanket is very large and could insulate me better even when I turn over and kick. (I must do that a lot because I often end up with blankets and pillows on the floor in the middle of the night.)



The cats also like it a lot.

AMVS

I wanted to sit down and make goals for this year but it's already halfway through February, so maybe not. My current goal is to finish my Sakura AMV by my channel anniversary in May. This will be the most ambitious and labor-intensive video I've ever done, if I end up doing everything I'm planning and can't find workarounds for some of the hand-masking. So idk if I'll actually hit that date, since I've already been working on it (inconsistently) for months.

I have other started or in-progress AMVs but my Idea energy is basically zero and has been for months, so I don't have high hopes for those. Luckily the Sakura video is responding well to Tired Trudging so SOMETHING is still moving along. This is the real upside of videos that need excessive manual masking :D

RL

I'm still debating how much I want to get into my various real-life successes and woes in this journal. I know it's just the internet and nobody here knows me In Real Life but it feels impossible to write anything Pathetic where anyone could see it. Short version: I'm fine but wish things were going better :/

In easy-to-share stuff, here are a few woes from the last few weeks. They sucked but I've turned them into funny anecdotes at work so I count that as a victory.

• broke the water valve to our fridge (luckily, in the closed position) by completely snapping off the handle. I thought it needed to turn further and applied the pliers. RIP. I'm stronger than metal I guess.
• had a malfunctioning cart at the grocery store and when I entered the parking lot it froze up (I think it had one of those GPS things so it stops functioning at some point, but obviously this was not the correct place for that to happen) and I had so much momentum that I banged my legs on it in one hundred places and tipped the entire cart onto the ground. Glass stuff broke. I was in the crosswalk and cars and people were waiting. It's been two weeks and I still have bruises. Everyone told me I should've gone back inside to get some of my money back and inform them about their cart but I was so mad that I just went home. On the bright side, a kind stranger helped me pick up all my groceries. In a story this would be our meet-cute but in reality we immediately parted ways :D

FOOD



I made these soft ginger cookies for a work potluck and they were a huge hit. They placed in the chili cookoff? THE VOTING FOR CHILI. Three separate people asked me for the recipe. Make these cookies I guess! I have made them maybe half a dozen times over a few years and people always love them.



Then I made the Red Lobster cheddar biscuits from the box for home and we ate them in about a day and a half :)