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I am right on the edge of getting ill, I think, that sort of tiredness that is more in the head than in the rest of the body, where I am slow to react and slow to think and everyday things feel just a little bit too much, so having done a fair amount of parenting (video games with smol son, colouring with smol daughter, making sure both of them are reasonably fed), I have left them to sit with their uncle while their father our spouse makes dinner, and I myself am lying on the bed with my laptop and Spotify and a cup of maple ginger tea.
Listening to Strange Angels inevitably took me to thinking about Pamela Dean's novel Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, and then to the enjoyable reading old rec.arts.sf.written posts about it. It does not quite work for me as a book, but I love it and find it fascinating, and it introduced me to Anderson's album, which I likely would not love so much if it did not carry the extra resonance of Dean's story. I think I have read the book too recently to reread it, but it is tempting... perhaps I will reread The Secret Country trilogy instead, I have not read it in many years and I bought them all as ebooks a while back -- I own them all on paper but I really do find ebooks (with their resizable font and compact nature) more convenient.
On another note, I have been doing Drops every day to study Japanese, although I have not yet done today for reasons which escape me -- right now because my ipad is downstairs and I am upstairs and I do not want to move, which is not the best reason but it is something like one. And I will have to go down soon anyway, because dinner; spouse is making turkey chili in the InstantPot, which is excellent, and the children may need supplementary foods -- but just a few minutes of sitting here first.
All of the thinking about Dean's book made me think about how one ambition I had, once, was to be the sort of reviewer of books that did such justice to them that an author I loved might be glad I had written about their book. I am not certain what that would look like in the practical world, but it is something to consider as I continue to think about ambition and desire and writing/creating and just what it is I want to do with myself beyond all the things I am already doing.
Listening to Strange Angels inevitably took me to thinking about Pamela Dean's novel Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, and then to the enjoyable reading old rec.arts.sf.written posts about it. It does not quite work for me as a book, but I love it and find it fascinating, and it introduced me to Anderson's album, which I likely would not love so much if it did not carry the extra resonance of Dean's story. I think I have read the book too recently to reread it, but it is tempting... perhaps I will reread The Secret Country trilogy instead, I have not read it in many years and I bought them all as ebooks a while back -- I own them all on paper but I really do find ebooks (with their resizable font and compact nature) more convenient.
On another note, I have been doing Drops every day to study Japanese, although I have not yet done today for reasons which escape me -- right now because my ipad is downstairs and I am upstairs and I do not want to move, which is not the best reason but it is something like one. And I will have to go down soon anyway, because dinner; spouse is making turkey chili in the InstantPot, which is excellent, and the children may need supplementary foods -- but just a few minutes of sitting here first.
All of the thinking about Dean's book made me think about how one ambition I had, once, was to be the sort of reviewer of books that did such justice to them that an author I loved might be glad I had written about their book. I am not certain what that would look like in the practical world, but it is something to consider as I continue to think about ambition and desire and writing/creating and just what it is I want to do with myself beyond all the things I am already doing.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-09 01:08 am (UTC)From:There's making perfect the enemy of the good, and there's making perfect the enemy of the possible.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-11 06:19 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2018-12-11 06:48 pm (UTC)From:(You are not the first person to suggest I am (sometimes!) infuriatingly sensible. I by no means took the phrasing as meant unkindly.)
Perfection makes us smaller by taking away the exercise of choice; "I can't do that because it won't be perfect". I don't know if that's the original intent of applying a concept of perfection to people, but it does seem to be the result.