(no subject)

I don't remember if I mentioned this in a previous post, but the other day, Friday, I think, a woman nudged me awake - to let me know it was time to get off the train.

I'd dozed off and if she'd not nudged me awake - I'd have missed my stop and been late for work.

Nudge.
Me: Whaaat?? (Disoriented)
Woman: excuse me, but I know you get off at this stop, since you do every day - right before me.
Me: Oh, yes, thank you! Thank you!
Woman: no problem.

It was the same woman who had told me to say excuse me two days prior, on Wed. The lady, I'd called a Dingbat in my head...

The Universe likes to surprise me and unravel my assumptions.

Also, this is why I like public transportation and living in a city - when you are alone, you aren't ever really a lone. People got your back and you have theirs. I feel like I'm part of a community. There's always someone to talk to, or to interact with. To watch. To exchange a smile or greeting.

Cities are for people who like people, and as much as I complain? I actually do like people for the most part.

No subject heading required...

I didn't want to call this entry shootings...or anything like that.

What continues to haunt me from all the news reports of the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, NY - is the story about the 86 year old mother who stopped there to get a quick bite to eat after visiting her husband in the nursing home. Only to be killed by an 18 year old gunman.

According to the blurb in the New York Times this morning..."Ruth Whitfield, 86, was a mother of four and “a mother to the motherless,” her son told The News. Her husband had moved into a nursing home years ago and she still visited every day. She had just visited him when she stopped at Tops to get something to eat, WGRZ reported."

She apparently visited him every day. And on that day, she decided to stop off at the grocery store to get something to eat, as opposed to going home or to a fast food joint.

This haunts me. I cannot get it out of my head.
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Been binge watching "Star Trek Discovery" on Paramount Plus all weekend long. Did take a break today, and took a walk to the two health food stores to pick up supplies. (I don't go often - they are a thirty minute walk, and expensive, and it's a chore to lug the stuff back. But it was a lovely day in the 70s, clear blue sky, after nothing but rain on Saturday.)

"Discovery" - the second and third seasons, I've found to be very comforting. ( Read more... )

I'm finding the series comforting, inspiring, and hopeful. I kind of need that right now.

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Also been watching New Amsterdam - which has one season left. It's been renewed for a final shortened fifth season. I've found it to be one of the more realistic medical series on television, with extremely interesting and multi-faceted characters. Reminds me a little of St. Elsewhere.

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On the reading front - in a bit of a reading slump. Am still making my way through book one of the Throne of Glass series. I bought on Kindle an 8 books in One for $5.95. We'll see if it holds up, though. I read reviews that some of the later books didn't transfer well to the Kindle.

Also it's very juvenile - both in writing style and plot. I have a feeling the writer wrote this for a young adult audience, and geared her writing to the less well-read portion of that audience. Makes for easy reading - I can skim - so there's that. I think it's also why these books sell so well? People don't have to work that hard at reading them. Tolkien or Marlon James or Octavia Butler or Ursula LeGuinn they aren't. I'm not even sure they make it to Andrea Norton or Anne McCaffrey, or Joan D. Vinge. A lot of modern fantasy writers in the YA field are kind of boilerplate - they seem to copy each other, and their writing styles are rather simplistic.

It's disappointing if you've studied writing technique most of your life and worked hard on mastering it. It's not if you haven't. Also, I expect more from the fantasy genre than the romance genre - I have no clue why, considering the publishers are more or less the same. Fantasy writers appear to fall into one of two extremes - juvenile YA writers interested in lackluster love triangle romances or academic writers interested mainly in the world building and little else. I want something in between the two with a focus on character development. And I can't find it.

Recs are welcome, if you have any and you aren't terrified I'll rip apart a favorite. (I probably won't, I hate conflict. It's exhausting). Note: I'm not interested in children's fantasy novels or middle grade. (I don't have any kids and am in my 50s. So it's the wrong demographic for me.)

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In other news...

Niece is improving. She appears to have gotten the same variant strain that I did. Which is fairly mild. It knocks you out for about two days. You turn a corner on the third day. Feel winded on days four and five and six. Better on day seven. Almost normal on day eight, and just tired after that.
Each day, I'm less tired. And the fatigue pretty much lifted on day six.

So she might be able to do her exam on Friday. It's apparently on Friday not Monday, but she needs time to study.