Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister

Books
Short fiction: read Malka Older's 'Narrative Disorder' (2017) and Samantha Mills' '10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days' (2025).

Apart from that, I've been reading audiobooks lately:

Read Rick Morton's My Year of Living Vulnerably, about CPTSD and the meaning of love, and had emotions.

Read Casey Johnston's A Physical Education, about her journey from a very unhappy relationship with her body/food/exercise to something much happier, via weightlifting.

I expected a lot of information I already had, of the "Women! Scared lifting weights will make you 'too bulky'? It won't, and here's why..." kind. It did contain that, but also more interesting (to me) reflections on the politics and class aspects of lifting, and physical coordination in compound lifts (I was already on board with the importance of squats and deadlifts, but this particular angle on them, of one's body communicating with itself, was one I hadn't encountered before, and I'm intrigued.)

Read Randolph Stow's 1980 novel The girl green as elderflower. The only Stow I'd read before this was his Midnite.

The girl green as elderflower is odd (approving). It's haunting. It draws heavily both on Stow's own experiences of having both malaria and a mental breakdown in Papua New Guinea, and on the mediaeval folklore of Suffolk (as recorded by Ralph of Coggeshall et al.) It's very funny in parts. It's deeply about trauma, spoken and unspoken, and the shape of the unspoken trauma is definitely related to his sexuality.

It's also deeply about the weird thing that is the relationship/connection/thing many people of British (acknowledging the complexity of using that term, but I really don't know what word to use) descent, born in former British colonies, have with the lands our settler ancestors came from.

Started reading Monkey King, Julia Lovell's modern, lively, and very heavily abridged translation of Journey to the West, narrated by Kevin Shen, who does all the voices.

I've never read Journey to the West before, and this is a very fun introduction.

Weather
Wetter and colder. I'm not in one of the parts of the state that's currently under flood warnings, so that's something to be grateful for.

Games
Mainly playing little puzzle games on my phone. Sliding blocks, word games, sudoku etc.

Misc
Got out some rope and an online guide and spent half an hour or so trying to brush up on my knots.

Went to Naarm/Melb to visit a friend for her birthday.

News
*wince*

Tech
On a whim dug out my old iPhone from eleven years ago and charged it up and turned it on.

Not having any internet access, it thought it was still 2015. My own little time capsule.

It was very plus ça change etc. I had been reading about trauma, reading the news, playing little puzzle games, and trying to brush up on my knots...

Cats
Dorian's been trying to perform an intervention on me re screen time. It's not going well, but I appreciate the care.