Day in the Life of an Idiot

 I skipped my Zoom writing accountability meeting today because I need to watch all the things before we dump our Hulu subscription on the first. 

The truly hilarious part of this is that the only thing I really need to watch is the second season of the new Bleach arc (Thousand Year Blood War). And, I say this as a tried and true Bleach fan, but it is so dumb and so cringe (the jiggle physics are just... gods help us all) that I need an emotional support fan to be on Discord with me while I watch it.

Seriously, I tried this on my own several times before and I kept hitting cetain moments where I'd have to stop, yell, "THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS, KUBO*" slam the off button, and then not watch for months. 

My dear longtime Bleach fan friend in Wales agreed to sit with me (on Discord and on a different streaming platform and in a different time zone) so that we could both get through this. I mean, there is part of me that would be fine if I never watched it to the end. I hate the ending with the fire of a thousand burning suns. However, I am such a completist for this fandom that it just doesn't feel right to give up, you know? I'm still writing fic in this universe from time to time (though my fervor has mostly died. I used to post something once a week. I just don't have that fire in my belly any more since Kubo killed all that is good and right in the world, by which I mostly mean Captain Ukitake but also my ships.) And, despite everything, some of the very best twists--some of which were signaled from the very begining--are in this arc. So, it's... worth it??

Plus, at this point I only have to put up with it for a couple of days. Then there's no more Hulu and no more Bleach. In the US, Hulu is the only place it's streaming; you can't even get it on Crunchyroll. So, I'm in it for the next however many days. And, we watched quite a few episodes today. Hopefully, we can just power through it. (We haven't even hit the awful transphobic scene yet. I can not watch that alone.)

So, that's part of what I'm watching and reading. Not that I would recommend it to anyone. Unless I HATED them.

The other media related thing I did recently was that I downloaded a whole bunch of audiobooks from Libby. Let me do an informal poll (not a real one, because I have never figured out how to embed them). Which of these should I listen to first:

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen
On Earth as It is on Television by Emily Jane
Queers Destroy Science Fiction! by Lightspeed, et. al
Amped by Daniel H. Wilson

I will eventually try to read them all in the time I have, and, if I'm honest, no matter what you all recommend I start with, I'll probaby start with whichever one is shortest (which is The Echo Wife, at 8 hours.)

Otherwise, I haven't been reading all that much. I did end up watching an anime (also on Hulu, since it was going away,) called Summer Time Rendering, which I liked for the cleverness of the time looping. It starts out seeming like it's going to be a murder mystery version of the movie Groundhog's Day (1993), but then the story veers into science fiction (and dark fantasy) kind of quickly. I will say that if you are not an anime or manga fan, this isn't a good one to start with, unfortunately. The manga it was based on is from a genre/publishing category called ecchi, which means that--speaking of jiggle physics--there is more than the typical amount of "fan service." Lots of panty shots and bouncing D-cup boobies. Heavy male gaze. And not nearly enough pretty. pretty men to make up for it. 

However, the mystery as it gets unraveled was pretty fascinating and by the time it turns into a battle/fighting anime (Summertime Render, the manga version, was a Monthly Shounen JUMP+ product, so becoming a fighting manga was inevitable, alas), the cleverness shifts to "how are they going to out run time and thwart the bad guy's ability to track them, this time." Which is a neat way to do it, for my money.  If you are cool with all the ecchi, I would recommend it. If not, yeah, there are a lot of uncomfortably large boobs bouncing around without nearly enough support. :-(

Otherwise, I will need to report soon on how my New Year's Resolution is going. I've heard back from nearly all 20 of the people who signed up to be my pen pal for a year. It's been really good for my mental health to have something to look foward to in my post box (gods know, my inbox is full of Democrats screaming for money and push articles from the NY Times and The Atlantic reminding me that the world is, in fact, on fire and democracy has died in darkness weeks ago.)

ANYWAY.

Oh, I forgot one other thing that I watched: The God of Ramen (2013). This a live-action documentary about a guy who makes ramen really, really well.  I am a member of Japanese Film Festival and so I get a lot of notifications when they run online "screenings" of various movies for international audiences. I have a couple more that I want to watch, but I also need to get though Bleach....

How are you all holding up? Reading (or watching) anything interesting lately? 


==

*Kubo Tite, Bleach's mangaka. A man I love to hate and hate to love. A ruiner of lives. A gifted genius and babbling dumb face.

 
Image: 1960s-style Marvel characters on a quilt, interspersed with red, blue, green and brown squares. Some of the colored squares are checked or dotted to imply the stippling done with color and shading in early comic books. 

Least any of you are worried that I was so petulant about the Facebook comment that I have given up on quilting, never fear. I turned around and started this one almost the same day. Here is the nearly finished result. I'm currently waffling about the edging. I think I may want to expand it a bit more, which would require some detail work, but... what else have I got to do? (I am still awaiting copy edits and final comments from Shawn, so, really, I don't have a lot on at the moment.) 

Meanwhile, I continue my postcard project, despite a distinct lack of funds. This will be week... four (?) of random, strange homemade postcards for my recipients. No, I think I unearthed a postcard booklet of Yellowstone postcards a few postcards back, so maybe it's only been a couple of weeks of these. I found an amazing postcard on Redbubble that I'd love to send, but I'm going to have to wait for Christmas money to arrive. My very, very cheap source of postcards dried up sometime ago. I used to be able to order postcards from Deviant Art. But, I think the powers that be figured out that I was going in via an old entryway and have since disabled it. Like, I don't think I was doing anything wrong, I just think that the powers that be discovered that offering postcards like that was was a loss leader and I was buying a f*ck TON through them. Redbubble and Etsy are much wiser about their prices and so, given that I need about 25 of these things once a week or so, they've become a very rare purchasing option for me. 

This week, in the process of moving some chairs around the living room, I uncovered a basket full of odd cards--like birthday greeting cards. For a while, I was pseudo-collecting these at estate sales. Back when I was getting into pen palling, I found it kind of silly/fun to just send out old-fashioned or odd greeting cards along with my letters. Nowadays, I am down to ONE international pen friend, so they languished. 

What I did with the greeting cards was cut them up to 6 x 4 which is the standard postcards size and then used scraps of pretty paper to cover up obvious birthday wishes, etc. The result is a lot of flowers? Odd pictures of birds? I'm not sure how I'm going to spin this one into the story I'm half-telling, but it will be fine. I'm never entirely sure (except in a few rare cases where people have actually reached out now and again to tell me otherwise) that my strange efforts are appreciated, anyway.  

It's mostly a project for me. As Mason once told his Discord: "Ima needs enrichment."

I'm like an octopus in an aquarium, apparently. 

In other news, I am continuing my nightly rewatch of a single original Star Trek episode. I accidentally rewatched "The Enemy Within" last night, and I rather wish I'd skipped that one. I will say, however, that Sulu is quickly becoming a favorite character this time around. He gets a LOT of funny lines, and, no surprise these days, but George Takei has very good comedic timing and is handsome and charming in a way I think I missed the first time through, as I was far more focused on the Big Three: Spock, Kirk, and McCoy. One of you suggested "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," as one I could randomly pick as part of this, and I think that will be tonight's episode. 

I am also using my time to bake cookies for the holidays. Yesterday, I made spritz. Today, I will be making sugar cookie cut outs, a recipe we call "Lizzy's sugar cookies," after Shawn's bestie from Kindergarten, with whom she is still in regular contact (and might still be a bestie?) 

 
Image: Willow's "Why won't you play with me all day instead of that stupid box?" thousand yard stare.

So, I should be writing on a short story for an anthology I finagled an invite to, so of course, I am suddenly filled with a desire to write pretty much anything else. It is Wednesday, so I should probably tell you all about what I am reading. I recently read a couple of manga--one that I reviewed over on my review site, called Dinosaur Sanctuary by Kinoshita Itaru. I also read My Wandering Warrior Existence by Nagata Kabi, who is the author of a bunch of other autobiographical manga, most famously including: My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and The Solo Exchange Diary. 

I haven't written up my review of My Wandering Warrior Existence yet because I'm not sure what I have to say about it. I will write something eventually, however, because my personal policy for MangaKast, my manga review site is that I review EVERYTHING I read that is manga or anime related. I do this because, otherwise, I'm sure I would skip reviewing all the trashy stuff I consume. I don't think there are a lot of review sites that faithfully record and discuss the weird, porn-y stuff that's out there? So, I hold my feet to the fire. Anything I finish, I review.

The thing is, Nagata-sensei is writing about her life. It's difficult to critique a narrative when it's essentially someone's lived experience, only illustrated and made public. Yet reading this particular volume makes me want to learn enough Japanese in order to write a letter to Nagata-sensei explaining to her that it's pretty clear to me that her "problem" in this particular volume isn't a problem at all. It's not that there's something wrong with her and, for me, it's not at all funny that she doesn't understand how people get into relationships. She sounds a bit neurotypical? But, otherwise, she's perfectly healthy and fine. She's just on the aromantic and/or asexual spectrum. She never seems to come to this conclusion in the book, however? Instead, she sets herself up--as she does in these manga--as a target for ridicule and laughter. That last bit made reading this particular volume kind of un-fun. I left the last page with a bad taste in my mouth, like I'd participated in self-bullying or something, you know? I felt the same way about her last autobiographical manga, My Alcoholic Escape from Reality. Yet I keep buying these books??  

I think it's that last part that I'm finding hard to justify to the audience that reads my manga reviews. I really need to stop reading about this woman's life. It feels weird to be taking enjoyment out of her actually very serious train wreck of a life. Like, in the previous book, My Alcoholic Escape from Reality, she ends up hospitalized for fatty liver disease which she brought on by basically being an untreated alcoholic, a condition she never solves, other than to realize that she can cheat on her fatty liver diet by STILL DRINKING OCASSIONALLY. Like, this woman needs therapy, not another manga contract. Or she needs a contract to write a manga called, "My Life-Changing Experience Getting Therapy."

And, if I write that in a review that's going to harsh someone's squee about this mangaka and her work.

I will probably write it anyway? But, this is why I've been dragging my heels. It's not going to be a fun review, where I say, "Dinosaurs! Hot guys! Hot guys and dinosaurs! What more do you want??" which is the thumb nail for Dinosaur Sanctuary, basically.

So, let's see. In other news, a combination of dental surgery (my DM's) and weather has cancelled our Dungeons & Dragons game for tonight.  Honestly? Either of those is a fine excuse. Both of them seems a bit like overkill. But, so no further adventures of the barbarian elf this week, as a head's up for the two of you reading my post-game write-ups.

Otherwise, what else have I been consuming? Mason and I finished up a marathon viewing of FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, (I had only ever previously seen the 2003 FullMetal Alchemist anime, which, once it diverges, is shockingly different, and so much BETTER. The 2003 version doesn't have General Armstrong and, frankly, her absence is a crime against humanity. She is god's gift to humankind and my ONLY anime waifu.)  So, that's been fun, in so much as a world-ending story can be fun.

I'm finally at the very last episode of Critical Role's second season... just in time to watch the new one-shot reprisal of that season's characters that they did.

I have the second Paladin book by Ursula Vernon, writing as T. Kingfisher, Paladin's Strength, in my hot little hands and am hoping to start reading that tonight. 

And, unrelated, but related to some of the TV/YouTube consumption, I started a new quilt. This one is going to be weird... pretty intentionally, but the friend I'm making it for loves both octopuses and sheep. 

 
Image: good doggo posing for Sakura Season pics in Matsuda (Kanagawa Prefecture), Japan

It's moments like these that I live for on the HeyGo tours.

For my new subscribers, I recently stumbled upon a virtual touring company called HeyGo. They do livestream tours around the world, and I have long been fond of Japan, and so I started going along as people walk through the streets of Osaka or Tokyo or in the countryside. Cherry Blossom season is just beginning in Japan, so I've been following a particular guide, Eriko, as she travels (often with her mom) around the Japanese countryside.

On Sunday, Eriko was in Matsuda Town at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Nishira Park ( 西平畑公園). The park's parking lot has a view of Mount Fuji. We were once again quite lucky to see it on a clear day.


Image: Fuji-san showing off her icy peak, framed by early-blooming Kawazu (ornamental) cherry trees.

For reference, here's Wikipedia's map showing the location of Matsuda:'



The festival grounds were crowded. But, Erika is a pro at keeping the camera trained on the sights, so I only noticed the number of people in passing. Erika is particularly fond of the color combination of the pink cherry blossoms and canola (rapeseed) flowers. This is the second tour we've been on with her this year where she showed off the brilliant yellow canola blooms.


Image: cherries and canola (a nice alliteration.)

The other tour I went on, on Saturday, was with a new-to-me tour guide, Toshi. Toshi took us to two different places, the Oyama Shrine (山神社,) in Kanazawa (Ishikawa Prefecture) Japan and then just down the way to Gyokusen Inmaru (aka Kanazawa Castle Park). 

The shrine's grounds were my favorite part (and, apparently, the only thing I took any pictures of.)  But, I was very enamored of the stepping stones and zig-zag bridges, which reminded me of the Japanese garden here in St. Paul at Como Zoo. 


Image: Oyama Shrine's zig-zag bridges, apparently called yatsuhashi, eight bridges,(八橋).

I took a bunch of pictures of the scenery of these grounds, but probably the most delightful moment was when we were joined by a pair of ducks.


Image: ducks in the shrine's pond. Birder friends, ID? I have no idea.

Probably someone in the chat ID'd the particular type of duck this is, but I have been turning off the chat function. I used it when I first started doing HeyGo a LOT. It is strangely thrilling to be able to say, "Hey, Toshi-san, what's that to the left?" and have the guide turn and try to identify what it is you're curious about. I really can make a person feel like they are actually visiting Japan (or wherever.) However, the problem I have with chat is twofold. First, there are always annoying people who pop on to a tour and don't seem to know even where they are and so they'll ask, "Where are we?" And, I dunno, my patience for that kind of stuff waxes and wanes. The second issue I have with chat is that it's a moving scroll off to the side and I am already trying to take in video that is sometimes jostling along as someone walks. I don't need that kind of vertigo-inducing malarkey.

The shrine is dedicated to this dude, who is depicted here in a rather atypical fashion. I don't know why, but I don't associate these kinds of statues with Japan. 


Image: a guy on a horse, ffs.

But, to be fair, parts of this shrine--the gate in particular--were designed by a Dutch guy. At any rate this guy was Maeda Toshiie a general during the Sengoky period and beyond. He has famous wife who is also enshrined here, Maeda Matsu. Apparently, because their relationship was so dynamic and influential, people often come here now to be blessed with a happy marriage (of equals, one might assume.) At any rate, it's kind of cool to see this lovely place dedicated to an original "power couple" of ancient Japan.

The Gyokusen inmaru was fascinating, if only because I spent the entire time trying to figure out what was up with the grass and the trees. The trees, I eventually figured were being shaped. The grass? I'm still not sure if this is intentional (as in seasonal) or if this is part of the construction that is ongoing.


Image: what is up with this grass?

As a Minnesotan, I have seen grass that looks like this? Every spring, but it seems unusual for Japan which is much more moderate in terms of its temperature. So, I dunno. Experts out there are welcome to correct/explain.

If you're curious where in Japan Kanazawa is, here is another handy Wikipedia map:



So, that was my weekend BEFORE I fell on the ice. Today is "What are you reading?" Wednesday, and I am not reading much at all at the moment. But, while resting my back in bed, Shawn (my wife) and I did manage to binge ALL of the first season of "Staged," which is a comedy starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen during the pandemic, directly following their success in Good Omens (which I loved.) I feel like, if you wanted more of their chemistry, this is a wonderful way to get it. Highly recommend. The reviews are mixed about season 2, but I am up for giving it a try.

The picture above is from a very short walk that Shawn and I went on yesterday morning when it was 40 F / 4 C and all the snow was evaporating into a heavy fog. Until yesterday, we'd had a lovely blanket of twelve plus inches of snow (approximately 30 cm). It's snowing right now, but last night's thunderstorm and rain was very... unnerving.

I've heard thunder in December before, but usually during a snow storm. I can't remember ever experiencing a tornado warning in December before, however. That was vey weird.

Other than our little stroll through the fancier neighborhoods in Saint Paul, Shawn and I also had planned a short trip out in "the weather" to drop by the Roseville library to pick up the books that I'd requested that had come in. I'm laying in stores for the upcoming winter break. Once Mason is home from college, our big plan is to snuggle in and have a week or so of "pajama days" where all we do is snuggle under blankets and read. I have a novel to write, as well, but I'm hopeless behind on that, honestly. I've been working on it, but not fast enough to make my end of the year deadline, alas. I hope to do some writing, but for whatever reason the words have been coming out at a trickle rather than a flood. It happens some times. This, too, shall pass. I had writers' group last night, so I will do some revision today. That often leads to forward-writing, so fingers crossed for me.

However, I suspect that I'm in one of my "intake" phases as a writer. I've been reading a lot and consuming a lot of TV/movies. Shawn and I finally watched both Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings last weekend. I have to say that I loved them both, much to my surprise. Next up for us in the MCU is the new Hawkeye mini-series. I feel especially psyched about Hawkeye because I was a fan of the Matt Fraction comic books on which they are very clearly based. (Pizza dog!)

In non-fannish news, she and I also finished watching the latest season of Shetland. 

As I also mentioned in a previous post, I've been ripping through as much Star Trek content as I can because Shawn got us one of those free month deals to Paramount +. I watched all of the seasons of Star Trek: Lower Decks. I  am now most of the way through Star Trek: Picard's first season, which I initially found to be slow moving but once they reached ( small spoiler ) I was all in. Given what my fan friends had said about this series, I did not expect to be as invested in Picard as I am. 

I may take a break before starting the second season of Picard, however, as tallgeese recommended the new animated series, Star Trek: Prodigy, and I'd like to dip my toes into that before everything evaporates at the end of the month. I'm also two season behind Star Trek: Discovery, but that's lower on my list of priorities. (And, I'll be honest, for me, the series flattened out after the death of ( spoiler ). I loved everything about him. He is who I would be in the Star Trek universe, if not a Romulan spy.)

I also ripped through the first volume of a manga called Zom 101: The Bucket List of the Dead, about a salaryman who was stuck in a job so awful that he's actually elated when the end of the world comes because he's finally free to do the stuff he's always wanted, like, have the time to clean his apartment.... (seriously.) The first volume rides high on this schtick, which I enjoyed, but I'm unsure how well that running joke will be able to sustain the story, so I mean, this is not necessarily a ringing endorsement. Plus, it's ecchi? So for those of you who know what that means, you know what that means. (Lots of unnecessary/gratuitous naked boobies. And maybe one dick? But, of course the official English-language version censored THAT, and not the boobs.)
 
Anyway, it looks like the snow has already stopped, alas. We only got a dusting, but I will pray for a bit more so that we can have a white Christmas for those who celebrate. For us, no matter what's on the ground, the days will get longer, so Winter Solstice is never in danger in it's main functionality if there is no snow. If the days no longer lengthen after Winter Solstice, we have a bigger problem than even climate change.

I hope you all are doing well out there, wherever you are.