korafox

This year I read 47 books!  Huzzah.  I spent a chunk of the year reading books of random accumulation that I was pretty sure were going to go for donation, I just figured I should actually give them one read-through before they went.  And now all my books fit on my bookshelves.

 

( Book list under the cut... )

 

Masking has been lovely in that the last time I was sick was January 2020...but the streak comes to an end as I am laid up with a sinus infection.  (Testing negative so far, anyways, and it does just feel like the standard head cold.)  I am not resilient when sick though so I am tucked away on the recliner feeling pitiful for myself.

So I was looking for a thing to watch on Kanopy to keep me company and guess what.  They have Farscape!  I have never seen it before and no time like the present.  After four episodes I am enjoying it so far.  Favorite things:

1) Zhaan  <3.  They are so gorgeous and mysterious and sensible unlike everyone else on the ship.  (I haven't actually caught their pronouns--I mean, in a show from 1999 I'm sure eventually someone is going to call them she/her but Zhaan just seems to have an "ahaha, gender?  how quaint that you worry about that" sort of vibe.)

2) The little floor robots with the wiggly lamp eyes.  So adorable

3) Really all of the puppets, prosthetics, and makeup.  A+ work and delightful. 

Thing that most annoys me:  Crichton continuing to make pop/Earth culture references that he knows no one else is going to understand.  Stop being petulant and purposefully making communication difficult, dude.  If you're gonna complain that the other members of the ship do fighting first instead of negotiation, it would probably help your case if they had any idea what you're saying half the time.

So yes, PSA, if this is a thing you want to (re)watch, it is on the streaming service Kanopy.  I get access through my local public library and you might have a similar situation.

You guys I know I don't post anymore but I am just too flail right now not to. 

I'm like a year late to this party but we finished The Magnus Archives last night.  X__X

So yes, all my non-work hours since then have been me flinging myself off a cliff into the vast swathes of fandom that I had assiduously avoided so as not to be spoilered.  So many feels.

Part of me wishes I could go back in time and run along with everyone else for the live experience, but at the same time I don't think I've ever experienced fandom that way?  I always seem to come in after it's over.  And I lurk.  It's hard to put yourself out there and claim to have something to say with the characters.  Goodness knows the last actual fanart I did was...probably a solitary Good Omens doodle at least fifteen years ago?  

But that being said, several of these characters have taken up residence in my heart.  So, *flail*.

This week my state opened vaccine eligibility to higher education staff and...

...this afternoon I got the first shot of the Pfizer vaccine.  \o/

It is probably a damn scientific miracle that this was possible only one year and two weeks after life plunged into lockdown here.

I don't think I have really started to process that I am now on a definite timeline to having an ability to see people again.  Husband was able to get his shot a little sooner than me, but we'll both be through the second-shot waiting period by the start of May, I think.  My parents and brothers are already fully vaccinated.  Littlest brother moved into his first own place at the start of March 2020 and we have yet to be abe to visit him there.  I might actually get to bring him a housewarming gift soon.

Everything has been Very Hard lately and I am so grateful for this bit of good. 

It is time again to tally all the books I read during this trip around the sun.  This year's total is 47 books--not a stellar year I guess, but in fairness there is a g*ddamn pandemic going on and that has a tendency to Distract.  One re-read denoted by an asterisk.

As always, happy to answer questions about any of the titles.


( Full list below the cut )

These are amazing and just what I needed today:

Artist Draws Male Superheroes as Pin-Up Models at BoredPanda  (NSFW sexual poses and some butts, but no full nudity)

...am seriously considering making the Bucky one as my desktop image.  For mental health purposes.  Yes.

Oh look, the lousy Smarch weather is here.  : /

It has been *snowing* all day, and I don't believe we've seen the actual sun in over a week.  A bit of brightness outside would certainly help with everything else that's going on, but it seems like it is Not To Be right now.  I feel like I should claim some bit of forward-thinking in picking a house where all the hallways go in a loop.  The circuit is only 20-25 feet on each side, but it is better than having no way to walk around given the weather.

Another reason I want the sun to come out already is that I finished a watercolor and I would really like to photograph it--the scanner is blasting out all my midtones and the digital scan result is not good.  But, the light has not been sufficient.  Alas it shall have to wait.

Slowly I am working on the Judgment Noema card.  Here is a WIP of what I have so far.
( Image beneath the cut )
The colors are not indicative of reality; they are just there so I can make sure the composition is balanced and things layer properly.  I suspect this one is going to have a fairly warm palette actually--reds/oranges and softnesses of reflected colors in crystals.  Everything is still rough but I have a lot of details in my head already.

Today started out fairly productive and now I'm lulling, so here is a post so I can hopefully refocus and get something done with my evening.

I am nearly done with a watercolor, just a few tweaks to adjust value left.  But now I need to find a mat/frame for it, and like a total genius I decided to make it a round composition.  The internet has yet to show me any options for round frames that are not 1) really cheap crap or 2) really damned expensive, so I may end up compromising and getting a round mat that goes in a square frame instead. 

I've chosen Judgment as the next Noema card to work on, and I have a thumbnail design that is a decent starting point.  I'm stalling on that because I ought to take a WIP snapshot of it and post this stage of the design with commentary, but my brain is having executive function difficulties with that whole process.  *sigh* 

A thing I am excited for next week is that I am going to a concert of the St. Olaf Choir!  I expect the music will be amazing and it will be great to hear what a real choir can sound like, ha.  They are doing a piece by Rosephanye Powell which is not the one we did in the fall, but I am looking forward to hearing more of her music and done justice. 

Choir started up this week again, and we have started to get into two new pieces of music.  They happen to both be a capella (I felt badly for our accompianist today) and both in weird frickin' meters that hate us.  Huzzah for 6/8 and 7/8?  (Arrangements of "Say Something" and "Nearer My God to Thee" respectively.)

The 7/8 piece is actually not as bad for the non-soloists once you get into it because the pattern is very repetitive and continuous.  The 6/8 situation on the other hand is like "here have a dotted quarter tied to a quarter then a sixteenth rest and a sixteenth note.  Now do something completely different in the next measure probably involving a dotted quarter rest."  Le sigh.  I am *terrible* at reading rhythm so I think I will just have to learn that one by rote.

Here is this year's book log, only a little over a week late.  This year I was reading all the books assigned by teachers in my department at work.  I omitted pure instructional textbooks (so no freshman composition manuals or literature anthologies that were designed for classroom use only).

It took me from mid-October to the end of June to read all of those books, about 50 as I recall.  And yes I finally f*cking read Heart of Darkness from cover to cover and it was worse than I remembered from having it assigned in high school.  Not just boring but also terribly, terribly racist! 

Since then I have been catching up on good old science fiction and fantasy reading.  The total count of books for the year was 68, woo.

As always, books marked with an asterisk are re-reads.  The full list is beneath the cut: