Hello wonderful soul!

This, this is the year that my Yuletide letter placeholder gets filled in on assignment day week month?! -_- *crosses fingers*

I signed up very last minute, so I had no time to fill in any Optional details. If you dread a signup without any info at all, here's ALL the info dump. \o/

If you'd rather not have your imagination hampered, please feel free to read only the "squicks and no-nos" section.

Squicks and no-nos: death in general (other than canonical deaths, and even then, would prefer no emphasis or graphic detail); sexual violence of any kind; animal cruelty, or anything bad happening to animals.


Request-specific info to be added this week, health allowing. >.<

Well, health & brain not very cooperative, but here we go \o/.

747 (Strangers In The Night) (Song)
Characters: The Narrator (747)

An older obsession of mine, returned. What is happening there? Has there been a global catastrophe while they were flying and are they (and other in-flight planes?) the last survivors of humanity?

I don't usually go for apocalyptic scenarios, but if this one takes your fancy, feel free to explore it - do please try to inject some hope and light into it if you do, though. I need my hope and light.

Alternatively, maybe they've travelled in time - backwards, forwards? To a time where there were no runway lights or runways, or to a time when they've been obsoleted?

I like "characters out of their time" tropes, so that's another way it could go.

Other themes I like are friendship, loyalty, trust, comfort, hugs, hope.


Early Edition
Characters: Gary Hobson, Miguel Diaz

Ah, one of my fandoms from before I knew the word fandom. ♥

I have to shamefacedly admit that I don't remember all the details of the epic episodes where Miguel appeared, but I remember it was epic, and people were fighting for their lives, and I had no idea what slash was but I knew I wanted Gary and Miguel to be very, very close. Feel free to keep it a close friendship, but would also love a relationshippy approach. As if Gary doesn't have enough trouble with "where do I get my info from". :D Kind of like the knowledge about being an Immortal in the Highlander canon, I view knowledge about The Paper as reserved to the nearest and dearest, so it's a big thing when someone makes it into that circle.

I loved Gary and his quest to fix the headlines, from his initial reluctance to "well, this is what I do".

I love Cat - I can't believe I didn't include him in the characters list, but, well, you don't have to include Cat. If you want, though, and if you're as appalled about my omission as I am, feel free to include him! Nothing bad to happen to him, please, I generally don't want any animal harm but I am especially sensitive to cats.


John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme
Characters: Finnemore | The Storyteller (John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme)

Well, since I ask you for a story of - I don't know. Meta happenings at Yuletide Manor? Shenanigans across time, space, and other fandoms? If you matched on this, I imagine you as a dedicated Finnemorean, and as such I give you free reign over the JFSP, Cabin Pressure, and John and Kevin's Sunday Papers universes.

Some of my favourite Since You Ask Me: The One with the Crocopie, The One with the Tortoise Ranch, The Murder Mystery at Coop Manor (Locked Cottage Mystery), A Ghost Story Without Any Ghosts.

Some of my favourite JFSP sketches are The Chess Sketch, The Two Bodyguards, Waiting for Snow Leopards, The Affair (AKA Lucy's Dilemma), Stoppable: the tram story, The Goldfish, Alien Abduction Story, The CatNav, Celsius vs Fahrenheit, Train Manager and Train Driver, Re: Revolution.

I'm not such a fan of the story of Chris MusCheer, though, so despite the seasonal associations, I'd rather not have that one.

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Once I start...

I miss the early days, when playing Pokémon was pure fun. I was participating for the first time in a massive fun and funny cultural trend, I wasn't taking it seriously, and I was having fun.

Hoe do you fight getting addicted to things that are designed - by clever, creative, well-informed people - to be addictive?

For me the fun starts to drain when playing becomes compulsive, when I just "have to" have the next one, and the next level, and what if a rare 'mon shows up just now so let's keep the game open forever.

Young me had the right idea when she refused to get into videogames because she knew I have an addictive personality.

Present me saw the smartphone availability, and then oops, now you're hooked.

I don't know how to make it fun again.

I wonder if any of you who've been at this gaming thing for way longer have any ideas, strategies you could share. I don't think I'm alone, not on LJ and DW, in having the "addictive personality" issue. ;-)

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

This country.

Some people have expressed that this week's catastrophic referendum result is the first time they felt unwelcome in the UK in decades. Lucky them.

I've never felt welcomed in the UK, certainly not by the British state.

My first contact with the idea of moving here was a complex system of tiers through which People Like Me [*] had to qualify in order be suffered to work in the UK; and a cold form to calculate your "points", which didn't even start accumulating until after your education level surpassed a Master's Degree.

[*] First, it was "people outside the EU". Then, after Romania joined the EU, it was specifically Romanians and Bulgarians.

We were all equal in the EU, except some of us were less equal than others.

(This is also what the UK means to me: a system that can always be manipulated to make some people less equal than others.)

I only made it here in 2011 because my first UK employer had no idea how much hassle it would be for him to get me a work permit. Once he started, and because I was obviously the best candidate by far and also a giant turkey who had no clue how to negotiate for money, he felt compelled to finish the process, and here I was.

With a tin can attached by the kind British state: I was bound to the same employer for at least a year.

That year turned to four, because I'm not free of my personal web of circumstances - impostor syndrome, iffy mental health, work ethic, perceived sense of duty...

I can't stress enough how much this precariousness can make People Like Me stay in toxic environments, in toxic or just shitty situations. Many people have simply criticised me for not looking for a better job as soon as the year was over. They're not in my mental shoes, and I've wasted a lot of spoons trying to get them to understand and empathise.

So, I didn't feel welcome in 2007, I didn't feel welcome in 2011, and I didn't even feel welcome in 2014, when the "less equal than others" officially ended.

---

I've never felt particularly "Romanian", either. My country of birth is an accident. I didn't do anything to become it. I don't find it a source of pride, I don't find it a source of shame. It just happened.

I first built my identity from books; then I discovered rock music, and mountains and camping, and I made do with a threadbare me that was always missing something.

Then I discovered the internet. I flourished online. Fandom was My People, and suddenly People Like Me were not defined by what we couldn't be, but by what we could be.

To offline people, I used to say "I'm a European citizen, really" in the joking way that's my deadly-serious-but-I-know-I'll-be-mocked-for-it way.

In Europe I finally found some kind of citizenship that better reflected who I was and how I wanted to move through the world.

(I tried to ignore the ways in which Europe itself was kind of turning its nose up at my specific national citizenship. Always less-equal-than.)

---

I haven't become British by living here, but London at least has found its way under my skin. I... like it here.

This means a lot, coming from me. I don't give out my like easily.

(People always asked me, and they always bristled when I didn't enthusiastically answer "I love it!" and gave a nuanced response instead. One went as far as to immediately ask me why I wasn't going back. It tended to be the most pronounced the least someone had moved or travelled themselves.)

Truth is I didn't like it here my first two years, and I've always feared saying it afterwards, because it was too new and too fragile to be believed, like a seedling that could still wither before becoming a viable plant.

I fought to be here. My first year was tremendously difficult, and I barely remember my second. (Depression comes with loss or blurring of memory.)

I fought the constant "so where are you from?" that always followed my first Eastern European accented words.

(I know many folks think they're just showing interest in their interlocutor. It irritates me that their first interest is in one of the least important things for me - a random accident like where I was born.)

I fought the surprise at "how good" my English was, as if it was unimaginable that I'd have learnt English before I came to live here.

I fought the "oh, right" non-reaction of prospective flatmates when I told them where I was from.

I'm not a fighter, and I'm as conflict-averse as one can be. I fought by staying, and talking, discovering, exploring, learning, meeting people.

I have friends here, friends who are no less European than I am, regardless of what's going to be on their passport two years from now.

---

I've always feared setting down roots, because I've always known I was in search of my heart's home.

I'd like to be one of those trendy digital nomads leading an interesting life. (My model for this is the extraordinary Cate Huston of Accidentally in Code.)

I didn't travel and wander lots, either. I'm fond of having a safe nest, and I tend to like "stuff". Object by object, stuff has accumulated around me. Person by person, a web of friends and acquaintances has formed around me.

Roots have sneaked up on me, and I don't want to be uprooted.

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Friends who live in on near Dublin or Edinburgh, go see one of these exhibitions for me! You have one more week: Turner watercolours in midwinter (January only, every year!)

I only found out last week, or I could have tried to invite myself to daegaer's for a weekend... *g*

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Lately it seems like the only time I ever watch movies is on airplanes.

* On the way out I watched Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. I enjoyed it less than the first one. I felt like almost everyone, but especially the villains, was putting on their worst acting forward, as in a backwards competition. It doesn't help that there were basically zombies - they may not call them as such, but that's the essential plot device of the "infection". It was good to see more girls as part of the Resistance, given that the mazes seemed to have been set up in a purposefully sexist way. I knew ( spoilersCollapse ) *rolls eyes*

* Not a movie, but I also watched the first three episodes on Humans, because they were available and I'd been curious for a while. I'm not sure I'm convinced, even with so much Tom Goodman-Hill. (I think I miss his geordieness from Hut 33. :P)

* On the way back I had a wide choice of Marvel movies, except for Age of Ultron (yep, still haven't seen it). (I tried to watch The Martian, but they restarted the entertainment system as I started it, and I didn't have the energy to start again from the beginning and fast forward through the bits I'd seen.) So, did I finally watch Ant-Man? Or did I rewatch Captain America: The Winter Soldier? No trophies whatsoever for guessing right.

* After that I didn't have the mental energy for more Marvel, or for the promised "continued violence throughout" of Fury Road, so I thought I'd take care of my renewed Bucky feels (like I said, no trophies) by watching Inside Out. It was cute, I guess? I both liked it and rolled my eyes at some of the stereotypes and oversimplifications in it. Good visual language for core memories, though. The cheerful feel-good assumption that the common child will basically be a bundle of joy and happy core memories upset me. Know what I really liked? That the main character is a hockey player, and it's a core part of her personality. And I say that as someone who's really uninterested in sportsball in general, but glad to see sportsball associated with girls and women. Like I said, it's not the hockey that made it hard to identify with Riley, but her exceedingly happy core. No one ever had reason to call me a bundle of joy... It felt wrong that Joy would be the first "inside" aspect to come to life, honestly. I think I'd be more of a Fear girl myself. :P

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Squee! I got a wonderful story in my tiny, tiny fandom! Might not make sense if you don't know the game Submachine, and it contains spoilers up to and including Sub 9. But also, there's a cat's perspective, and clever observations about humans, and some fun with etymology and the Egyptian pantheon.

Nine Lives Theory (2732 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Submachine
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Einstein (Submachine), Murtaugh (Submachine), Liz (Submachine), sunshine_bunnygirl_17
Additional Tags: Cats, Quantum Mechanics, Ancient Egyptian Deities, Etymology
Summary:

A thesis of the submachine as told by a cat. It seems.

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Thanks to daegaer for reminding me of Fandom_Stocking!

Shameless plug for my wishlist.

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

The linguistic triumphs of being an ESL immigrant: there have been a few people so far who've reacted to the information that I'm from Romania with a peculiar surprise: "Oh! I wouldn't have guessed it, because you're quite light! All the Romanians I've met have been dark[er]!"

This has given me pause for two reasons.

One: I took "darker" to mean "darker skinned", which... would be a surprise. The vast majority of Romanians are plain white. And we do have a massive chip on our shoulder about being mistaken for Rroma. (There are Romanian Rroma. There are non-Romanian Rroma. There are a lot of non-Rroma Romanians.) (No prizes for saying that six times fast. >.>)

Two: By the time I figured out that maybe "dark" and "light", without other qualifiers, refer to hair, I was far away. But that's not much better, because the next time it happened I feel obliged to disclose that... ta-da-da-dum! I get my hair dyed! Audible gasp. Like, really, if I had pink hair, would they say "Oh, I never met a Romanian with pink hair!"? Well, I hope they wouldn't.

It's not unusual to have one's hair dyed, but it's unusual to have to disclose it to any random person. So... don't do this, please?

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Since I want a break from fighting with technology (Dreamwidth's lack of direct image posting, I'm looking at you; LiveJournal's still-a-bit-painful process, you're also being side-eyed), I'll just direct interested parties to two tumblr photo posts:

A Goat (and Cat and Sheep and other animals) Story, non-fandom specific yet very Finnemorean in spirit

A Peek at the Dog Park (Warning: Dog Park Acknowledged), definitely Night Valean in spirit and ~aesthetics

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

November may not have started yet, but Fireworks Season has (in the UK).

It is, as a guy on the Vote Now Show put it, that time of the year when all of Britain celebrates a failed revolution, The Day When Everything Stayed Exactly The Same.

Nevertheless, people celebrate, and they do it with fireworks.

It's the time of the year when I keep running to the windows, and I keep being frustrated at only ever hearing fireworks - almost always out of sight.

My FOMO is raging, is what I'm saying.

Complaining about invisible fireworks isn't the only reason I'm posting, though. I also want to draw your attentions to this topical sketch by John Finnemore, cunningly posted over at my tumblr. :D

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

This is the placeholder for my Dear Yuletide Author letter. -_- Hah! Take that, ye of little faith (and a lot of shared fannish history >.>)!


Fandom: John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme
Characters: Cheeky Bodyguard (John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme), Scottish Bodyguard (John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme)

I'd like these two to face one of their greatest fears: having to do their job.

Someone attacks the Prime Minister with eggs, pies, or possibly both. Who shall jump ("Mine!") in front of the pie?

Or something of this ilk. Seriousness is not sternly discouraged, but silliness is, as may be suspected in a fandom that dresses up as lemons and carries them around ~The World~, paramount.

I am also not at all adverse to slash.


Fandom: Daymare Town (Flash Games)
Characters: Girl in Dragon's Castle (Daymare Town), The Player (Daymare Town)

If it comes up at all, I'd prefer a female Player.

Tell me a story. Or let the Girl in Dragon's Castle tell us a story. Or let the Girl and the Player explore and have unsettling, foggy adventures. Was Daymare always a creepy town with distrustful, grumpy inhabitants? Is it great having random storage pouches all over your town? Is the Girl a prisoner or a friend of the Dragon? And how does the Player [spoiler] [spoiler] (you'll know if you played it) play into this?

Daymare is a creepy, occasionally disturbing world, and I feel it only right to give a trigger warning: suicide if they want to play Daymare 4. I would prefer that this particular side story doesn't come up in the fic. :/

I'd prefer no romantic relationships for this one.


Fandom: Submachine
Characters: Einstein (Submachine)

Please no animal death, especially Einstein or any other cat.

I sort of believe cats live in all spiritual planes at once anyway, so it's not much of a stretch to imagine Einstein drop in and out of all the seven layers.

Feel free to have Liz and/or Murtaugh appear. Also feel free to have a Player character, or other OCs - the game keeps emphasising how The Player is all alone and never gets to meet other people, but we know there are humans in the Submachine, possibly at the same time in neighbouring rooms, it's just... they can never meet. (Except for those mythical exploration teams... Hmm.)

I don't have a preconceived idea of what kind of story I'd want in this universe, so feel free to explore what you wanted to write in the submachine. All I know is I'd love to read something in this world - it's a haunting world, and we have so little of it in small 2D squares. Its muted colours make it seem cosy at times, as opposed to Daymare Town's gritty black and white, so I tend to forget that it's still a rather harsh world.

My favourite setting is the "Winter Palace" in Sub 7, but I'm also fond of The Lighthouse and The Lab.

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

How strong is your Need-For-Closure?
64 - 90 CLOSURE ADDICT

You have a high need for closure. You make decisions quickly, and believe that having clear rules and order at work is essential to success. Dining out, you usually eat at restaurants you’ve already been to. You tend to stick to your familiar friends, and might benefit from spending time around people with diverse viewpoints. Ultimately, a high need for closure is sometimes a good thing: it can make us commit more firmly to ideas, beliefs, and actions.

source: Nonsense Quiz by Jamie Holmes

Hahahaha. I knew that. I was wondering why I was taking the quiz, even, when I already knew the answer. I need closure. I can't stand uncertainty. When I am forced into uncertain circumstances, my anxiety shoots up through the roof.

With one amendment.

I don't actually make decisions quickly! I angst and fret and dither and hesitate and second-guess. Of course it makes me as anxious as a kicked hive, but I can't stop myself from fretting and dithering.

This is possibly the worst case for a closure addict, then: needing closure but being unable to not second-guess herself. But wouldn't the need for closure go hand in hand with perfectionism, which is why I dither on my decisions (because they have to be perfect)?

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Did you know, moving is not stressful enough on its own!

What you really need to get the most out of the experience is for the mover to pull out at the last minute, while you're frantically packing boxes!

Apparently he's never heard of Spare Van Keys. (Or maybe MJN forgot him in Amsterdam #mandatory Cabin Pressure reference)

So now I am in Moving Limbo, I have negative chill, and I need a third item to finish this phrase on a DUCKING ANGRY EMPHASIS.

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

YAY, thank you, someone offered to share a double room with me! (I'm not sure she wants to say who, that's why I'm mysterious, but she's fellow Cabin Crew! \o/)

Thanks so much to everyone who boosted the Bat signal!

Thanks to a combination of brain weasels, poor planning, and Berlin seemingly being SO POPULAR this time of the year, I am without lodgings for the 4 to 7 September that I'm going to be in Berlin for!

Help, circle / flist, you're my only hope!

Could you, or do you know someone, who could put me up on a spare couch or floor space for those 3 nights, please?

I'm going to EuroAirdotCon, a Cabin Pressure / John Finnemore convention. The hotel is fully booked, nearby hotels are fully booked or exceedingly expensive, Airbnb hosts didn't work out.

I'm going to be spending most of the time at the convention or out and about, I just need a safe and affordable place to sleep. You'll barely know I was there.

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Rank Name
1 Seemingly Unrequited Pining
1 Hurt/Comfort
1 Loyalty Kink
1 Selfcest (possibly due to time travel)
1 Magical Connection (telepathy, etc)
6 'Groundhog Day'/Karmic Time Warp
6 Incest
8 Enemies to Friends to Lovers
8 Amnesia
10 Trapped in an Elevator/Snowed-In Cabin/etc
10 Found Families

Welcome to my id. You're welcome.

This is the tumblr where you can have a go at the meme yourself: http://ellimists.tumblr.com/


I think it's an accident of algorithm that actual 'Friends to Lovers' ended up so low it didn't make top 10. I do love "friends to lovers"! But maybe it shows that it doesn't do so well unless it's amplified with the added spice of some other tropes. I took the quiz again, trying not to hedge so much as it doesn't lead to good algorithm loops, and Friends to Lovers came much higher, surrounded by more or less the same tropes as now. QED.

I can also nicely visualise why Steve/Bucky not so much presses my buttons as jams them down with supersoldier strength and a metal arm: canonical amnesia, with a friends to lovers and found family background (Steve and Bucky before the war) and foreground (the Avengers), with so much loyalty it's off the charts, and so much hurt to require comfort from.

It also explains why I occasionally like to append Tony Stark and make a nice tension-laden triad. I wouldn't call Steve and Tony enemies, more like antagonists, but it's enough. Add in Bucky and kaboom!

Not all tropes apply to all my fandoms equally, but all in all, pretty good sorting algorithm. :D

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

A few important lessons learned this night.

One: you cannot just replace flour with cocoa because you want a thing to be more chocolatey (and you have no scales, so quantities are more like guidelines), and "they're all dry ingredients anyway, right?"

Wrong.

If you want the cookie dough to keep its shape between worktop and baking tray (and you prooobably do), you need both extensibility and elasticity. Cocoa has neither. Flour has both.

Two: there is extensive science out there. With a sense of despair and 2 am-ness, I googled "how to make dough more elastic", and I got whole dissertations about bread and pizza dough. I had been hoping for an easy answer such as "add more egg" or "add more butter" (because these were things I had to hand and seemed easy enough to mix).

I was able to rescue the thing, more or less, by adding water (thanks to sarken), egg (my fixed idea), and finally, counterintuitively for a dough that started out as too dry, flour.

Three: Recipe bloggers are out there for a reason. They tried this stuff so you don't have to. Don't even think about getting creative ("I'll just use brown sugar because that's what I have", "hey let's put more cocoa because chocolate yum") until you have a feel for how these things work.

(Three prime: Definitely don't get creative at 11 pm. No, really, I know it seems like such a great idea and a unique opportunity to finally use those Tetris shaped cookie cutters you've had for ages, but the lesson of programming - there's no such thing as "let's just" - is a lesson of life.)

As I have said elsewhere, I think I've fully earned my Arthur Shappey Cooking Badge. Now, to catch the 10:30 train for the picnic that was my whole motivation for all this...

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Oh hey, if you liked my "Tetrix" t-shirt, and were sad that it wasn't available on Qwertee any longer, they've spawned off "Übertee", and the Tetrix is the t-shirt of the day right now:

https://www.ubertee.com/



If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Notice woman tying her shoelace and man next to her checking his phone.

Think: "Ooh, is there a new cache around here?"

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

…or are they? *cue mysterious music*

Hey Chief, I might be wrong - ahaha, hah, who am I kidding? Let’s cut to the chase (figuratively):

I’ve had an idea, and because I’ve had it, I’ll do it, because that’s the kind of person I am.[1]

My idea is to enact a preemptive strike against the wretchedest and cursedest time by having a Finnemeet! Who’s with me?

I know it’s just an ordinary working day, but as most working days, it does have an end, and I would rather spend that particular time of the day called “the evening” in a pub or cafe with a flotilla of Finnefans than alone in my metaphorical suit of black.

As I am London-based, I propose a London location, and I hope as many of you who want to join also can join. I’m thinking either the vicinity of Hoxton / Liverpool Street (most convenient for me), or King’s Cross (hopefully easier to get to from more places). Where would be most convenient for those of you interested in coming?

___________
[1] Well, not entirely true - the kind of person I might be, if I wasn’t a capsized duck. But shappeybunny encouraged me, so here I am, paddling like hell underneath.


PS: this is crossposted from... tumblr. Of all places. Oh, how the mighty etc.

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

On not making snap judgements based on Someone Else's Code:

A bit of empathy can give you a lot of insight into not only the code that was written, but also into the problem the code was trying to solve. If you start from the assumption that the author had no idea what they were doing, or was a malicious asshole, or that their opinions were just wrong, you essentially force yourself to start from scratch, and may miss out on crucial information that informed that decision you’re now questioning.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

---

Some of you, who've been around for years, may know that I used to be the person who was always online. I shunned "the night life", I didn't drink, and since those seemed to be the only available "outside" entertainment, there was nothing for me to go out to. I was happily devouring TV shows and their associated fan byproducts.

Lately (by which I mean the past couple of months, at most), I found a lot more things to do. I'm finally starting to discover all those London things to do, certainly more than in Bucharest. I joined a couple of Meetup groups, a couple of mailing lists, and there is of course the FinneFandom, and suddenly there are Things To Go To that don't necessarily rely on alcohol and/or the existence of people willing to go out with me.

And then I don't find any time to do "me" things, or keep up with chores, or try to sort out some of the health problems that I can do things about.

On one hand, I feel like I am "finally" Doing Something. I am finally Participating. Living. Proving I am a worthy person by Doing Things.

On the other hand, I feel like butter spread over too much bread, with no mathoms to give.

And then The Internet dropped this link into my lap:

Am I falling into the "busy trap"?

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.

( more borrowed wisdomCollapse )

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.

Another way to mark the passage of time: a whole year to go through a giant pack of 36 toilet rolls.

Despite this opening, I didn't have a shitty birthday, on the contrary. Partly because I took matters in my own hands and planned my own entertainment: cats and comedy (not simultaneously). Oh, and a day off work, that definitely helped. I had some geocaching planned, too, but rain got in the way.

Oh, yes, geocaching is something I do now, after first hearing about it all the way back in 2009, but failing to find any caches in Bucharest. I also felt odd and awkward poking about things in my old city, and I couldn't find a partner in cr...er, lawful activity. Thanks to cesy for bootstrapping my proper intro to the world of real-life treasure hunting! :D

I'm very behind on all the TV shows that I still follow, as few as they are. I would need a whole week off work dedicated to TV watching only. It would be magnificent, though. *sigh*

The time keeps getting to 11 pm, and I always run into the next day trailing a backlog of "but I wanted to have done this already" things, and I want to keep this post at least as generic as possible so I can have a public post again that's not entirely devoid of me-content. For the sake of the old days. ;)

If you prefer Dreamwidth, you can reply or read the comment(s) there.