is it just more check in wednesday, at this point?

[felinejumper]

scuffing a shoe guiltily against the floor so my partner and I...got Breath of the Wild....two Fridays ago...and it's eaten all my spare time...like....ALL OF IT, like 5 hours a night of it every night since, and more on weekends. (It's so good, I am Deeply In Love with our boy Link and my girl Urbosa). Also, I learned to embroider this week, which has been so fucking satisfying and waaayy more addictive/relaxing than expected.

AND, oh, yes, also, in what is technically much bigger news, I went from working 0 hours a week to 40 hours a week, under very surprising circumstances— like, an emergency call on Thursday morning asking if I could, basically, pinch hit for a project I used to work on, because the RA quit with no notice. And it's going ok! It's super weird to be back after a year away, and I am mentally already preparing a fucking dissertation on the unintentional abuse of RAs practised by everyone higher up—like, ten simple steps to avoid crushing your passionate but very young, actually, underlings, beneath the massive weight of your expectations so they don't have a mental break down like all of the RAs I've know who've worked here, me included; if they work, that is. The simple steps to not having a breakdown. crosses fingers

I am also reading books, although...not too many, given all the new hobbies.

She Rises, Kate Worsley

Somebody on DW had a post in early March with, I think, just...books about queers? maybe boats? in the past. I apparently forgot to put it in my memories, which is annoying, because now I'm reading it and would like to tell them personally! But I don't remember who!. It's about, uh, being poor in 1740s England as a (lesbian?) dairymaid and as a 15 year old boy pressed into the Navy, with alternating viewpoints. The impressment chapters are pretty grim, and pretty interesting for that reason. I don't know that I've ever read fiction that directly narrativized what being small and delicate and kidnapped by the Navy would be like; I find those chapters distressing and—how do I say this?—the prose is serviceable rather than beautiful or overwhelmingly immersive, which is good, because I am very happy with this level of distance from 1740s British Navy.

Middlemarch has been a reading WIP since like November; I love it everytime I pick it up but never make it a priority read, I think. But it's amazingly comforting for a book I've never read before, and I do not understand how I keep hard identifying with every character. Anyway, currently it's Dorothea's impending crush on Will and also her desperation to be useful. Literal same.

generally on the book front, I had dinner with my cleverest reading friend yesterday, and as usual the two of them sent me home with 9 loaners + the results of picking through their "getting rid of pile" so...I'm a monster, and have my assigned reading for the next two months, also. I'm excited, though, because it includes:

• Carson, red doc, which I've been dying for since August when I read Autobiography
• two Valeria Luiselli books
• Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable
• two Fanny Howe books? novellas?
• Robinson, Housekeeping

In addition to Nimona, which I've never read in full, and then some assorted short stories, and also some very cool non fiction about memorials to death in America.

Comments

[shadaras]

I'm glad you had the time and energy to pick up the RA position when they called you! That's a big jump, though, so I hope you're also taking care of yourself -- which playing video games and reading sounds like doing. :)

[felinejumper]

I HOPE it works out! But I also have some escape hatches in case it doesn't (which is not, I realize, a very encouraging way to frame things, but...I think it's ok for contextual reasons?), and I have backup in terms of community, so if I start justifying working past 5:30 or multiple weekend hours, then someone will sit me down and make me think about why I'm doing that. <3 and yes the video games are SO GOOD. So. Good. Damnit, Nintendo.

[shadaras]

No, that sounds very encouraging as a way to frame things! You're doing a lot and making sure you're got structures to make sure you don't burn out; that's awesome!

[forestofglory]

Middlemarch! I read that in highschool and loved it and I keep thinking that I should reread it but it's such a long book.

[felinejumper]

I don't totally understand the 19th century's thing for Very Long Novels—too much leisure time?—but it is very intimidating to consider the western canon from a pure length perspective. My Middlemarch is digital, so at least that way one can avoid causing permanent back damage for several months of working through it!

[chestnut_pod]

What a beautiful stack of new books! You need something to keep you going between the assigned readings :)

[felinejumper]

They're SO pretty, and I'm v excited to have all of those especially in conversation with people -- both the lending friends, and the general DW community, who collectively seems to read every book in the world. I loveeeee it.

[donut_donut]

Middlemarch is just incredible. I read it like fanfiction -- once I got like a third in I almost literally could not put it down. I have memories of reading it while walking home from work in the twilight, because I couldn't bear to stop for even ten minutes.

[juushika]

When I finally picked up Breath of the Wild I lost vast swathes of time to it & I never regretted a thing. It's so lush and immersive, and giving it big chunks of time is absolutely part of that experience.

[aerialiste]

Housekeeping is just one of those dazzlingly perfect short novels, seemingly born like it fell from the forehead of Zeus...I can think of only maybe a half-dozen like it, in its compact flawlessness. Lolly Willowes? Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary? We Have Always Lived in the Castle? Probably something by Angela Carter...there's a subgenre here, maybe, something about women writing for/by/about women, and non-magical magical realism. "A witch is never lost, for she always knows where she is."

[felinejumper]

scribbling down recs uhh-huh uh-uh 3 more flawless gems, noted.

I started Housekeeping last night and immediately realized I was too tired for the level of, mm, precision? it is going to ask of me in how sharply lit the language feels. But it's going to be the first of that stack I tackle during non-bedtime reading hours (i.e. imminently)

[aerialiste]

ngl I have an...obsessive interest in this length/sub-genre (?) of novel, if it really exists, and crave to write my own. maybe someday.

[kore]

Ohhhh Housekeeping is so awesome. The film is great too. You might like Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Jeanette Winterson too, if you haven't read those.

[felinejumper]

Oh MAN a film adaptation? That's great; I have a partner who I...like to be able to talk about things with, but reads less aggressively than I. I do love Chopin/The Awakening, so I expect I will also love Winterson! thank you for all of these recs!