#merry chrysler! happy crisis!

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of a commonplace book: holiday edition

monday, dec 5, 2022 ~ 9pm ----> thursday, dec 22, 2022 ~ 4pm  ---->

                                      saturday, dec 24, 2022 ~ 4pm

i’ve had this one languishing in drafts for so long that it’s now a holiday ilcb! stay warm out there, get yourself something nice to drink and light a candle or two or three, i am sending you a hug and a far-too-long post.

reading brrr what did i just finish. when i first drafted this post it was wintering by katherine may. fine premise, i generally accept her point about life inevitably having periods of winter and learning from them. i like the creativity of her different chapter topics. i am tepid to cool about the mix of research and creative writing, mostly because it wasn’t as scientific as i would have liked, and the bits of memoir turned me off at first. i’ve been reading more nonfiction the last few weeks, so i’m also here to report that index, a history of by dennis duncan was quite entertaining for being a book about a piece of book apparatus, and it will probably be a source of many good party facts for the next few months. i began listening to it as an audiobook though, and i must say the melifluous narrator’s voice was a) very entertaining because he had a really hard time with the latin and b) did his best with the fact that many of the examples in a book about indexes (indices?) were just lists of things and page numbers. switching back to print was a good move, imho.

book of the month and possible new entry in my top ten of the year, though, was the goblin emperor by katherine addison, which housemate G gave me as an early christmas present and which was absolutely my shit, between the shakespearean language and the shakespearean court intrigue. the emotional weight of a character shifting from the formal ‘we’ to the informal ‘i’ midsentence! the gradual building of a totally new world and language system! all the supporting cast coming to love the main character in ways that he can’t quite believe but which are clear to the reader! it reminded me of the best bits of the hands of the emperor in that way, and it ranks alongside that one as far as being ‘books that i didn’t want to end.’ the name of the ‘untheileneise’ court is evocative of ‘unseelie’, ever so slightly, and the flavor combination of reading this while also watching the d20 show mentioned below has been delectable.

watching couple of different contenders for this topic, surprisingly, between continuing to watch bossam: steal the fate with @hematiterings​ and fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood with @hematiterings​ and @pep-squad-lizzie​, and having watched crouching tiger, hidden dragon and 20 minutes of a random episode of the white lotus on the plane, or now having been at my parents’ for a minute having started enjoying miss scarlet and the duke and three pines with them. on my own, though, it’s been dimension 20-- i bought a year’s subscription for myself as a present, and the entire visual and storytelling aesthetic of a court of fey and flowers has been hitting so right. i love aabria’s dm style, i thought this during exandria unlimited too (and i just did a cursory search of ilcb posts to make sure i haven’t said this already?? if i have please forgive me)-- there’s a richness and glitter to her narration and the details she chooses to highlight. and everyone in this group is doing such a great job, i’m in ep 2 ‘the great hart hunt’ right now and just, the different strategies each of the characters has selected to solve the puzzle, the combination of more court intrigue with humor and whatever earnest emotion peeps out sometimes, plus the slightly-different-but-equally-creative take on goblins from brennan and k.p. hobb here as opposed to the goblin emperor (they both have emotive ears!) is very good to me, personally.

listening mostly podcasts, if i’m honest. i put on an 8-hours-of-gentle-christmas-carols yule log youtube video today, but really i’ve been listening most to the WBUR podcast last seen when doing dishes or cooking or otherwise getting the streets of this city back under my feet. the episode on the jewel heist is where i started, while the one on chinese pie / pâté chinois and the franco-american/quebecois in new england gave me an emotion. this evening, though, there will be christmas music and yes that is a threat.

playing more stardew (while enjoying fey and flowers in the other window) but i’ve decided i can start a new game for a new year! while i work out how to download things from the itch.io bundle i bought literally two years ago, and scroll through the under $10 section on steam’s sale, recommendations are welcome. things i’m intrigued by: spiritfarer! a dragon age? i do not have a gaming laptop, a desktop computer, or a good gaming rig in any sense, and i will be choosing based entirely on Vibes (art / music / tone / narrative / writing etc), but input and suggestions are always welcome! also i tried to teach my dad 2048 and it went about as well as i could have hoped. also i asked for a zelda DS game for christmas like it’s 2013.

making there was a lot that could have gone into this section over the last few weeks, if i’d posted it when i initially started thinking about it-- i hung a poster! remounted a shelf! and now have dried orange slices for last-minute ornaments and made many (MANY) molasses-ginger cookies, and am in the process of mulling apple juice (california apparently not believing in proper cloudy apple cider). we’re travelling to see family the day after boxing day, so any real holiday baking will probably happen once we’re there, rather than being made now and then having to be frozen or eaten all in a rush-- so nothing to report on the bread / pie / candy front. yet. CIDER UPDATE: it tastes like hot apple juice. luckily irish coffee is also an option now.

working on but it’s christmas! i hear you cry. yes, and all free time is time you could be working on your journal piece, i reply. i’ve also been grinding through RAship hours before the end of the year, even though my contract continues until the end of april, because the more i can get done now the easier the spring will be. also i’m reading some diss chapters for a friend (self-serving also because his topic is close enough to mine that i can call this research!) and working on a letter of support for a prof who’s been good to me over the years and who is up for a teaching award. my journal piece is a cleaned-up version of a talk i gave, so really it’s a question of prettying-up the footnotes and inserting better citations, and trying to make it Good Enough while not too different / not rewriting it entirely. what does this actually look like? hell if i know, but unless someone gets back to me about image permissions it’s a moot point anyway. happy new year to me.

[darktober]

thanksgiving is finally over you know what that means

[marciliedonato]

Stole this meme bc the Tumblr girlies (gn) deserved to have it... Merry crisis she's just like me fr

[atduskart]

It took me half an hour of resizing, but I finally managed to enter this piece in the art contest at 400X400 pixels. So most of the detail is lost but you also can't see the flaws!

[opossumking69]

Happy jolly holidays to you all! I hope you get to celebrate it with your loved ones, or at least peacefully! Eat well, remember to hydrate and just take a breather

[sketchquill]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!! °❆⛄⋆.ೃ࿔🦌*:･❄️✨🎄

[beefrobeefcal]

merry chrysler to all the bistro friendos who celebrate!

I-don’t-want-a-lot-for-crimus regards,

Beefro👌🥩💜

[13o7billionyearsinthemaking]

Inspired by that one meme from @tttejamesfan

It's not even December yet

[weboglez]

holiday harringrove sketch page 🫡 it’s kind of smudged oops LMAO

[butteredteeth]

MERRY CHRYSLER/HAPPY HOLIDAYS MY BELOVED TUMBLR SILLIES

[n-and-uzi-chat-abt-things]

Uzi: happy chrimis eve

N: its crismin eve!

J: merry crisis

V: MERRY CHRYSLER!!!

Tessa:……Christmas Eve-

Doll: (“v was so confident”)

(Ibis paint pre made material was used to make this)

[thedragonlair77]

Happy Christmas 🎄

[rhodeybugg]

Sibling energy from N and Uzi in the corner

"I wanna put the tree topper on!"

"Uzi, you can't reach it!"

"Well help me up, you goof!"

Also love the fact that V has declared war on the christmas lights. N, help your girlfriend.

[justafriendlyhuman]

Happy Holidays!!

[its-brit-bruh]

Merry Crisis!

[helloeezkitty]

merry christmas from the autism creature ❤️