This and that and the other thing
Mar. 6th, 2025 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatTired. Work has been busy. And hard. But at least I enjoy the people that I'm working with - and I'm away from the toxicity. Well for the most part.
Me: I'm seeing a play on the 20th.
Breaking Bad: I've not seen a play on Broadway ever. I don't like plays.
They are all artifice.
ME (I raise an eyebrow and look at him quizzically.)
Breaking Bad: Well, granted they are kind of supposed to be.
Me: Yes, that's why I was looking at you the way I was - wondering artificial as opposed to what? (I laugh)
Breaking Bad: It's not like film - that's true acting. Theater is all projection, it's just theaterical, but film is picking up a moment of reality.
Me: Well they are completely different mediums and forms of acting - done differently. Film is about capturing a real moment on camera - but it's not real exactly, nor really acting. It's okay, I like that expression - Snap a shot. Now do it again. While with theater you see a whole play live with the people acting the roles, no retakes, no second chances, it's anything goes.
I told Mother about this conversation.
Mother: Didn't he write plays? I thought he was a play write?
Me: Oh, yes he was. I forgot. I wish I remembered that - I would have asked.I know he's a frustrated screen writer.
I think the Universe puts us with folks to teach us stuff. We learn from them, they learn from us. When we've learned everything we can - we move on or rather when the universe decides we've learned everything we can from each other and the situation, our paths part ways. Think of life as a journey, and you meet folks on it, travel with them for a bit, have experiences, learn stuff, then part ways, and meet new people and have new experiences to learn? So, I try to figure out what I've learned, I don't try to figure out what they learned from me - that's more than I'm capable of at the moment.
***
Mother bypassed Amazon to get me a gift. Go Mamma. I did help and provided links that weren't from Amazon. Along with links that were - so ultimately it was her choice. I can't remember the list of gifts that I sent her. I think work is killing my memory? [Today, when I jumped on a negotiation meeting, I had to ask the consultant to remind me what change order we were working on, which contract, what it was about - and whether it was a negotiation meeting or a pre-negotiation.]
I'm admittedly being rather halfassed about my Amazon boycott. I can't totally boycott - the book I published is on Amazon, so are millions of other independent writers/publishers books. Boycotting the books would hurt me and them more than Amazon. Also, not boycotting Audible (because again books?), and not boycotting Comixcology (also books?). Prime - on the fence about. I may cancel that. I also may cancel the television service. I don't do the drugs, and I can stop buying other things for a few weeks. I don't have Alexa. OR I do but I've never used it? I'm on the fence - I want to buy myself a gluten free cake - and the only one I can find is from Whole Foods - it's not by Amazon, it's By the Way Bakery - which is way up on the Upper East Side. (I may do that - it's for my Birthday, we'll see. I may instead just make Brownies, which are lower in sugar. No Trader Joes doesn't have cakes.) The difficulty with Amazon is it has its fingers in practically everything? We even have an Amazon delivery locker in the lobby of the apartment complex.
Did by-pass Amazon and bought a new casual tote handbag from Etsy:
My current one is kind of wearing out.
Wales: Soon we won't be able to trust the weather forecast because T/M.
ME: It's not exactly reliable now.
Although I somehow doubt it will be that easily shut down - the Navy and the Military and all the transportation services rely on it. What the Republicans are attempting to do is privatize everything - and make it all for profit, and have 0 services run by the Federal Government. The Republican mindset is that it should be free market capitalism - serving the self-interests of the individual. Kind of Ayn Randian view or Objectivism. If you read Atlas Shrugged, or better yet just Anthem (it's her novella and a whole lot shorter) - you'll see the philosophy. Private for-profit organizations run everything - the view is this more efficient, and everything runs more smoothly. (It doesn't. I've worked in private organizations.) But as we all know - that doesn't work? Logic clearly left the building at some point during this? It's a whole lot harder to shut down government services than most people think. And 100% of Americans, even the greedy asswipes depend on them.
Meanwhile the Doofus is waffling, he backed off of the Mexico tariffs and delayed the Canadian tariffs (mainly because someone finally got across to him that this would tank the US's economy?) I feel like we're doing the Texas Two-Step with the Republican Administration/Doofus - they come up with some evil outlandish destructive scheme or law or bill or action and the American/Global Resistance pushes back legally, procedurally, diplo and financially - with logic, common sense tactics, and patient peaceful resistance.
The whole thing exhausts, annoys, and irritates me. I go on the internet? See the news? See a text from Wales? Talk to Breaking Bad? Read comments on social media about any of this? And I start praying for an asteroid to hit the earth and wipe everyone out. People can be very annoying?
***
Decided to go to a talent show being put on by Crazy Org. Yes, Crazy Org is putting on a Talent Show between 4-6pm on March 13. I'm going with Art History Major and a group of her work friends. They are all younger than me. I can stand out. In more ways than one. I'm okay with that. I've always stood out - one gets used to it after a while.
***
Books
Gave up on the audiobook Fourth Wing - the character of Violet was insufferable, as was her love interest, Xaden (?). I liked the dragons. But they were such a small portion of the story - that I finally threw in the towel. I don't see how anyone made it through this? The world building makes no sense. The focus is on the love interest - but it doesn't work and is mostly bickering - I know she's trying for banter? But it's bickering.
I'm the wrong demo for this.
Jumped over to A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Mass, and this is rather good. I'm surprised. She's blending multiple fairy tales and myths together, and subverting them in the process. Having studied most of them in college (to the point of memorization) I'm finding it rather fun and compelling. I minored in cultural anthropology, focusing on myths, folklore, and legends. I even collected them. This book is blending the stories of Tam Lin, Cupid and Psyche, Rose Red, and Beauty and the Beast - and subverting all of them, in that the damsel is male, and the hero is female. Lots of interesting gender subversion. That said - I'm not sure that I like the development of a dark romance with a dark Fae, who has tortured her and her friends. OTOH, I admittedly like the enemies to lovers storyline, and it is an interesting twist.
Station Eternity - is losing me. In the middle of the space station science fiction mystery novel, we have this odd sub-tangent about a vigilante violinist, who can't play the violin after stopping a robbery at a mall in a wedding dress. It's like all of a sudden, the writer started a new story - with a whole new point of view - all new characters - in the middle of the book, and I'm kind of lost? I went from Mallory and Xan, and the Gneis to well Lovely Brown, the violinist on Earth. It was bad enough that the writer began to introduce new points of view after about fifteen chapters of being in Mallory's perspective, without warning. Now, at the 47% mark - we have the story about the violinist? I'm a little annoyed. I mean yes, the violinist vigilante who got her pinky finger sliced off while fighting off robbers in a wedding dress (she tried it on with a friend who was getting married at the mall) is entertaining to a point and an innovative idea for a story - but not in the middle of a science fiction mystery with quirky aliens, one of which may have been the murderer? I want to go back to that story.
Me: I'm seeing a play on the 20th.
Breaking Bad: I've not seen a play on Broadway ever. I don't like plays.
They are all artifice.
ME (I raise an eyebrow and look at him quizzically.)
Breaking Bad: Well, granted they are kind of supposed to be.
Me: Yes, that's why I was looking at you the way I was - wondering artificial as opposed to what? (I laugh)
Breaking Bad: It's not like film - that's true acting. Theater is all projection, it's just theaterical, but film is picking up a moment of reality.
Me: Well they are completely different mediums and forms of acting - done differently. Film is about capturing a real moment on camera - but it's not real exactly, nor really acting. It's okay, I like that expression - Snap a shot. Now do it again. While with theater you see a whole play live with the people acting the roles, no retakes, no second chances, it's anything goes.
I told Mother about this conversation.
Mother: Didn't he write plays? I thought he was a play write?
Me: Oh, yes he was. I forgot. I wish I remembered that - I would have asked.I know he's a frustrated screen writer.
I think the Universe puts us with folks to teach us stuff. We learn from them, they learn from us. When we've learned everything we can - we move on or rather when the universe decides we've learned everything we can from each other and the situation, our paths part ways. Think of life as a journey, and you meet folks on it, travel with them for a bit, have experiences, learn stuff, then part ways, and meet new people and have new experiences to learn? So, I try to figure out what I've learned, I don't try to figure out what they learned from me - that's more than I'm capable of at the moment.
***
Mother bypassed Amazon to get me a gift. Go Mamma. I did help and provided links that weren't from Amazon. Along with links that were - so ultimately it was her choice. I can't remember the list of gifts that I sent her. I think work is killing my memory? [Today, when I jumped on a negotiation meeting, I had to ask the consultant to remind me what change order we were working on, which contract, what it was about - and whether it was a negotiation meeting or a pre-negotiation.]
I'm admittedly being rather halfassed about my Amazon boycott. I can't totally boycott - the book I published is on Amazon, so are millions of other independent writers/publishers books. Boycotting the books would hurt me and them more than Amazon. Also, not boycotting Audible (because again books?), and not boycotting Comixcology (also books?). Prime - on the fence about. I may cancel that. I also may cancel the television service. I don't do the drugs, and I can stop buying other things for a few weeks. I don't have Alexa. OR I do but I've never used it? I'm on the fence - I want to buy myself a gluten free cake - and the only one I can find is from Whole Foods - it's not by Amazon, it's By the Way Bakery - which is way up on the Upper East Side. (I may do that - it's for my Birthday, we'll see. I may instead just make Brownies, which are lower in sugar. No Trader Joes doesn't have cakes.) The difficulty with Amazon is it has its fingers in practically everything? We even have an Amazon delivery locker in the lobby of the apartment complex.
Did by-pass Amazon and bought a new casual tote handbag from Etsy:
My current one is kind of wearing out.
Wales: Soon we won't be able to trust the weather forecast because T/M.
ME: It's not exactly reliable now.
Although I somehow doubt it will be that easily shut down - the Navy and the Military and all the transportation services rely on it. What the Republicans are attempting to do is privatize everything - and make it all for profit, and have 0 services run by the Federal Government. The Republican mindset is that it should be free market capitalism - serving the self-interests of the individual. Kind of Ayn Randian view or Objectivism. If you read Atlas Shrugged, or better yet just Anthem (it's her novella and a whole lot shorter) - you'll see the philosophy. Private for-profit organizations run everything - the view is this more efficient, and everything runs more smoothly. (It doesn't. I've worked in private organizations.) But as we all know - that doesn't work? Logic clearly left the building at some point during this? It's a whole lot harder to shut down government services than most people think. And 100% of Americans, even the greedy asswipes depend on them.
Meanwhile the Doofus is waffling, he backed off of the Mexico tariffs and delayed the Canadian tariffs (mainly because someone finally got across to him that this would tank the US's economy?) I feel like we're doing the Texas Two-Step with the Republican Administration/Doofus - they come up with some evil outlandish destructive scheme or law or bill or action and the American/Global Resistance pushes back legally, procedurally, diplo and financially - with logic, common sense tactics, and patient peaceful resistance.
The whole thing exhausts, annoys, and irritates me. I go on the internet? See the news? See a text from Wales? Talk to Breaking Bad? Read comments on social media about any of this? And I start praying for an asteroid to hit the earth and wipe everyone out. People can be very annoying?
***
Decided to go to a talent show being put on by Crazy Org. Yes, Crazy Org is putting on a Talent Show between 4-6pm on March 13. I'm going with Art History Major and a group of her work friends. They are all younger than me. I can stand out. In more ways than one. I'm okay with that. I've always stood out - one gets used to it after a while.
***
Books
Gave up on the audiobook Fourth Wing - the character of Violet was insufferable, as was her love interest, Xaden (?). I liked the dragons. But they were such a small portion of the story - that I finally threw in the towel. I don't see how anyone made it through this? The world building makes no sense. The focus is on the love interest - but it doesn't work and is mostly bickering - I know she's trying for banter? But it's bickering.
I'm the wrong demo for this.
Jumped over to A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Mass, and this is rather good. I'm surprised. She's blending multiple fairy tales and myths together, and subverting them in the process. Having studied most of them in college (to the point of memorization) I'm finding it rather fun and compelling. I minored in cultural anthropology, focusing on myths, folklore, and legends. I even collected them. This book is blending the stories of Tam Lin, Cupid and Psyche, Rose Red, and Beauty and the Beast - and subverting all of them, in that the damsel is male, and the hero is female. Lots of interesting gender subversion. That said - I'm not sure that I like the development of a dark romance with a dark Fae, who has tortured her and her friends. OTOH, I admittedly like the enemies to lovers storyline, and it is an interesting twist.
Station Eternity - is losing me. In the middle of the space station science fiction mystery novel, we have this odd sub-tangent about a vigilante violinist, who can't play the violin after stopping a robbery at a mall in a wedding dress. It's like all of a sudden, the writer started a new story - with a whole new point of view - all new characters - in the middle of the book, and I'm kind of lost? I went from Mallory and Xan, and the Gneis to well Lovely Brown, the violinist on Earth. It was bad enough that the writer began to introduce new points of view after about fifteen chapters of being in Mallory's perspective, without warning. Now, at the 47% mark - we have the story about the violinist? I'm a little annoyed. I mean yes, the violinist vigilante who got her pinky finger sliced off while fighting off robbers in a wedding dress (she tried it on with a friend who was getting married at the mall) is entertaining to a point and an innovative idea for a story - but not in the middle of a science fiction mystery with quirky aliens, one of which may have been the murderer? I want to go back to that story.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-12 01:01 am (UTC)