Can't believe I haven't posted at all since msmoat died. I'm still missing her a lot, and I wish her DW hadn't been deleted. I don't know whose decision that was. Sigh.

One big part of my radio silence lately is that I've developed a stubborn case of tendonitis in my dominant arm (the thumb/wrist kind), which has been a real problem. Not just because my work involves a lot of varied use of my hands even outside of typing, but also because my main hobby and so much of my interaction with friends are via the computer.

I wrote a little story for amedia's guardian_wishlist, for instance, but haven't answered any of its comments just yet. Or, like, it's Yuletide season, and putting together my letter and signups is slow and ouchy.

But I'm out here! Just having some hard times, is all.

Via PFL's Pros fannish grapevine (♥), I have heard that her surgery "went as planned or better", and she was awake and talking afterward, though of course very tired! That's all the news, since now comes the lengthy minutiae of staging and other doctory business. But it was so nice to hear.

Welp, had a bit of a meltdown today, sigh.

( Behind a cut, to spare you )

Iiiii had a msmoat visiting me for a long weekend, and it is a HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ACTIVITY.

When we used to live closer, it was a more doable thing, but since I had to move, no msmoat in person for me. Until now, when she managed a visit, and we had prime talking, watching, loafing, relaxing time, including delicious Indian food, shows, vids, story-talk, and more!

I feel refreshed in ways that vacations with more, like, running around and tourism don't really do. \o/

Also, as a special gift to me: she found out that I hadn't yet watched Shetland season 4, and was like OH YES WE GOTTA, so we did! All of it. And the specialest-gift part is that I had her and her knowledge to be able to say to me, yes, it gets v angsty in interpersonal and spoilery ways between your favorite characters, but it'll All Be Okay. And it was!

In short: w00000t

SooOOOoOOOooo, I have a birthday comin' up. And in today's mail I got...a letter from the AARP offering me membership. Welp.

Anybody have any opinions on the subject? Would it be worth my while to sign up? Or is it mostly just a spam factory? (I get health insurance through my work, and other insurance through USAA, for what it's worth.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to go find myself a rockin chair, a porch, and a front lawn, for the sitting in, on, and yelling at. :D

the_shoshanna came to visit me this past weekend, and I had a great time. It was so nice to see a friend in person, especially after I unfortunately had to miss an opportunity in the spring to see a bunch of friends at once.

While she was here, we finished up the last half of season 2 of The Good Place, which she had seen but I hadn't yet. I love that show...I always feel like I'm in good hands, showrunning + writing + acting + production design all included. Then we watched the blooper reels, as a cherry on top. Only downside is, now I have to wait for season 3 like everybody else. Hmf.

The next day, I remembered Shoshanna had expressed an interest in seeing The Exorcist tv show, after she attended a panel about it at Escapade. So I offered to show her episode 1, and she was willing.

...well, then somehow it was suddenly almost 11pm and we were finishing season 1. Maybe we fell in a wormhole or something? I hadn't actually rewatched season 1 in its entirety since I first saw it--I'm so glad I did! Marcus remains my favorite. ♥_____♥

Also, on Sunday morning I looked at the contents of my fridge and said, "Oh gosh sorry, it looks like I only have a loaf of sourdough bread, 3 eggs, and some milk--not enough eggs for two apiece :( ", and shoshanna was like FRENCH TOOOOOAST, and then there was some mixing and some butter in a pan and we had delicious thick-cut sourdough french toast with nutmeg and cinnamon.

I had forgotten that you can...you know. Make food out of ingredients? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, I can recommend a Good Place/Exorcist double-feature friend-visit weekend... whiplashy in all the best ways.

Hello, it's me again! Thanks so much for all the cheer and encouragement!

As marycrawford mentioned, they tell me the surgery went very smoothly. They didn't have to remove any lymph nodes, and are optimistic about the penetration (or lack thereof) of the bad cells. My followup appointment with the surgeon isn't for three weeks, but I'm hoping he'll tell me the pathology results sooner once he gets them.

I only had to stay in the hospital overnight, and was out before noon the next day. Now I am home, shuffling around, resting, wearing extremely soft nightshirts, sleeping, watching the Extended Edition of the Lord of the Rings, and other healing activities.

Most importantly: today I got to TAKE A SHOWER, for the first time since the morning of surgery. I washed my hair! I got the grubby lines of leftover tape adhesive off my arms! Ah bliss.

...but now I'm tired out from showering, so I am going to sit in my comfy chair under a blanket and build up my energy reserves. My exciting plans for later in the day are a 10-minute walk up and down the hall, some lunch, and then a nap. OMG. So riveting. Stay tuned. :D

Turns out I will not be able to sign up for Night On Fic Mountain this year. Woe. But I have to undergo some Srs Medical Care, surgery-style (more on that later!), and the recovery is a bit extensive and time/energy-consuming. When I'm feeling up to it, if the time frames allow, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for any likely pinch hit!

zomg work is eating my face you guys. Our normal summer spike is 1) early, and 2) more like two shoesful of cleats. Plus this Saturday will be my second working Saturday in a row and involve a (happily very rare) 2-hour-each-way commute.

On the one hand, so awesome that lots of people are coming and using the things and producing research and whatnot--that's what we're for. On the other hand (har har), I've started having some trouble with my cubital tunnel--the nerve that goes through the elbow and can have trouble if you have to keep your elbows tightly bent all the time, like say when doing a lot of close work at a film inspection bench. Ouch.

Also, I had heard that someone donated a piano to my co-op and they were going to put it in a 'piano room' somewhere in one of the high rise buildings, for lessons or whatnot. How nice, I thought vaguely, I wonder where the piano room will be.

WELL LAST NIGHT I SURE FOUND OUT.

Turns out the piano room is what used to be a bike room, directly beneath my bedroom, and with no insulation (which is why my floors can be painfully cold to the feet in winter as all the heat sucks out through the floor). So at about 1am my floor and bed were suddenly playing me VERY LOUD AND EXUBERANT PIANO MUSIC.

I staggered down and knocked on the locked door, and it was opened by a young blond man who stank of liquor. We discussed how his "creative moment" (his words) unfortunately had to stop because I really had to sleep. To his credit, even when (presumably) literally stinking drunk, his piano playing was really very good, and also he apologized and stopped and I eventually fell back asleep.

So, you know. Lots going on around here.

To end on a bright and less wtf moment: I got my Night On Fic Mountain story done! I made marycrawford come up with the summary, which I recommend--stuck on a summary? MAKE MARY DO IT. It's tagged and titled and posted! So I am happy.

And I have an idea for another story hot on the griddle, which I would love to start chomping on, as soon as work lets up a little bit on my face and my nerves let up a little bit on my arms. Can one use Siri as a speech-to-text writing tool I wonder?

ONE THING: Soooooo what happened is, a couple days ago I sprained my ankle. I was trudging home with a million other worker ants, took a bad step somewhere among the terrible uneven concrete across the street from my workplace, and BLAMMO I and my stuff were sprawled all over the road. In the rain. With a bunch of people standing over me.

Ugh. Sometimes I think the secondary embarrassment is almost neck-and-neck with the actual ankle pain. (But then I have a flashback to the terrible noise my ankle ligament made, and I stop thinking that.)

It took a couple minutes for the initial pain to subside enough for me to tell it wasn't broken, and then the kindly bystanders gathered my belongings, hoisted me up, and put me into a cab. I've been Resting/Icing/Compressing/Elevating like a mofo, although unfortunately I've also had a long couple of workdays since then, one of which was twelve hours long.

On the bright side, it could have been SO much worse. With a good Ace bandage and care in moving around, plus UberXs/cabs to and from work, I managed my workdays okay, and it's looking much better and increasing in mobility. I've had much worse sprains in my day, with crutches and whatnot, and I'm grateful this wasn't one of those.

Still no fun, though. And I have another very demanding workday coming up later this week, probably 13 hours, with a lot of standing and moving around. So I'll be RICEing all week in the hope that it'll continue to improve at this pace.

ANOTHER THING: While I'm sitting in my chair with the foot propped up, my fancies have turned to thoughts of Yuletide nominations. Just a week to get my noms in! Hmmm. What are you nominating?

I haven't even started to parse my final choices--see above, re: ankle and stressful work schedule--but it does seem that the Aubrey-Maturin novels, as well as the Master & Commander movie, is all safely under the limit, so that's a possibility. Now that I've finished the books and am re-reading them all again, I'm starting to feel delightfully immersed. (And of course the movie is engraved on my brain lobes, so.)

Another thing that leaps to mind is Shetland, the BBC Scotland show that sakana17, klia, and thevetia turned me on to. Well-written, beautifully-filmed detective drama set on the islands of the Shetland archipelago, and I adore the main character (other characters as well, of course, but, ♥ JIMMY ♥ ).

Rejseholdet|Unit One again, I think, to make sure it gets in there.

Shockingly, even though Black Sails looks to be just over a thousand stories on AO3 alone, using the yuletide bookmarklet on them reveals that there are actually fewer than 600 that are in English, complete, and over a thousand words long! Add that to the hundred-and-thirty-some that are on ff.net, and it still looks eligible!

I'm not sure I feel ready to write Black Sails (and by the way, I finished season 2 last week! I'll give that its own post, hopefully tomorrow), but if I'm not, it still might be nice to ask for.

That's four fandoms, though, and I can only nominate three. I have some mulling to do, for sure.