Spare Oom
World’s on fire. Literally or metaphorically, or so it seems. Nothing’s burning yet in my corner of the world but the forecast is for one of the hottest days of the year.
(And early this month we had a day that was like something out of winter!)
I’m going to write about other things.
1. I messaged my brother about recent efforts to turn a room that’s been masquerading as a storage container into a proper spare bedroom:
“Letting you know about Spare Oom! Includes queen bed, wardrobe (access to Narnia not guaranteed), drawers and northern outlook.”
In his reply, my brother asked: “(and what about an old professor or a grumpy housekeeper?)” I told him: “BYO”.
Other messages received this week from my brother have included: “OH MY GOODNESS [character name] JUST GOT A BLACK TALKING SWORD AAAAAAAHHHHH” (no context given, no context needed); “how would you feel about binge watching The Mandalorian over Christmas?” (from a longer message about plans for Star Wars) and a comment about the recently-published-but-not-recently-written Robert Jordan novel, to which I replied: “I’m currently reading [that], only two chapters in”.
All we need is a Lord of the Rings reference to round things off.
(I know it sounds like a normal week, but this is how we talk to each other and our text messages don’t usually mimic that very closely.)
2. I bought a 2020 diary and it’s so strange to think that next year will be “twenty-twenty”. Like it has perfect vision. I’ve spent a decade resisting calling the years “twenty-something”, sticking with “two-thousand-and-something”, but I think the symmetry of “twenty-twenty” is going to win me over.
I am a bit sad about about setting my 2019 diary aside. I’ve put a lot more detail and effort into it -- it has colour illustrations and highlights, and more lists and comments than previous years’. It’s a list of things done and not just of things to do.
3. It also feels strange to be on holidays, although I’m not sure why. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been on holidays this year! Something about end of the year events plus summer plus Christmas plus things which just happen in December (like my grandmother’s birthday). All the things, all at once.
That’s not a new combination, of course, and some other years have been even busier, with more deadlines, events and things ending. Perhaps the difference is that other Decembers have been more chaotic and I’ve been run-down and overwhelmed. This year I’m looking December differently because I’m feeling calmer and more hopeful.
(That shift is not just due to circumstances going well -- or I think and hope it isn’t. I’ve become better at managing some things.)
There are times when I feel like Christmas equals summer and having one without the other is just unfathomable, but there are also times when I think that the northern hemisphere system of having Christmas in the middle of winter, and of the academic year, makes more sense.
4. There’s a women’s lifestyle website that I’ve been following for much, if not all, of the last decade. Even though I’m still interested in some of their content, I have decided to unfollow. I want to stop getting distracted reading things which are really a waste of my time and I don’t want all of their headlines invading my Feedly, which is otherwise very bookish and fandom-y.
Instead I’m going to treat it like a news site. I don’t follow any of those, I just check them when I want to read current events. Sometimes that’s several times a day, other times it’s not for weeks on end. Their homepages tend to just highlight today’s posts and if you scroll past something, it’s unlikely to still be there tomorrow. In that space, I find that the things I don’t want to read, and headlines I don’t want to see, are easier to ignore.
5. I did some wardrobe weeding -- and then the next day I went shopping, not specifically to look for clothes but that’s what I ended up buying. So I did more wardrobe weeding and reorganising.
Nearly all of the things I’ve discarded I either wore when I was at high school or else acquired secondhand from a relative or family friend. (I am much better at recognising what styles suit me, and identifying when and why a garment doesn’t suit, than I used to be, and it’s taken trial and error to get here.) All the things I’ve bought this week have been secondhand. I’m telling myself that I am being organised rather than being wasteful.
I’m not wholly convinced, since I have just counted up my shirts and realised that I own more than I thought. (How dare I think of myself as someone who needs more clothes?!)
But I do know that, if I feel like I need more clothes, it’s not because I’m some insatiable monster. Once I amassed a scarf collection that works for me, I stopped feeling a need to add to it.
6. Other secondhand finds include: Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which I have never read and I don’t expect to wholly agree with but I hope will turn out to be entertaining enough to warrant having spent a few dollars on it, and Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment.
[edit: Wrote this Friday but then never posted. Things continue to be okay here.]
Originally @ Dreamwidth.
(And early this month we had a day that was like something out of winter!)
I’m going to write about other things.
1. I messaged my brother about recent efforts to turn a room that’s been masquerading as a storage container into a proper spare bedroom:
“Letting you know about Spare Oom! Includes queen bed, wardrobe (access to Narnia not guaranteed), drawers and northern outlook.”
In his reply, my brother asked: “(and what about an old professor or a grumpy housekeeper?)” I told him: “BYO”.
Other messages received this week from my brother have included: “OH MY GOODNESS [character name] JUST GOT A BLACK TALKING SWORD AAAAAAAHHHHH” (no context given, no context needed); “how would you feel about binge watching The Mandalorian over Christmas?” (from a longer message about plans for Star Wars) and a comment about the recently-published-but-not-recently-written Robert Jordan novel, to which I replied: “I’m currently reading [that], only two chapters in”.
All we need is a Lord of the Rings reference to round things off.
(I know it sounds like a normal week, but this is how we talk to each other and our text messages don’t usually mimic that very closely.)
2. I bought a 2020 diary and it’s so strange to think that next year will be “twenty-twenty”. Like it has perfect vision. I’ve spent a decade resisting calling the years “twenty-something”, sticking with “two-thousand-and-something”, but I think the symmetry of “twenty-twenty” is going to win me over.
I am a bit sad about about setting my 2019 diary aside. I’ve put a lot more detail and effort into it -- it has colour illustrations and highlights, and more lists and comments than previous years’. It’s a list of things done and not just of things to do.
3. It also feels strange to be on holidays, although I’m not sure why. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been on holidays this year! Something about end of the year events plus summer plus Christmas plus things which just happen in December (like my grandmother’s birthday). All the things, all at once.
That’s not a new combination, of course, and some other years have been even busier, with more deadlines, events and things ending. Perhaps the difference is that other Decembers have been more chaotic and I’ve been run-down and overwhelmed. This year I’m looking December differently because I’m feeling calmer and more hopeful.
(That shift is not just due to circumstances going well -- or I think and hope it isn’t. I’ve become better at managing some things.)
There are times when I feel like Christmas equals summer and having one without the other is just unfathomable, but there are also times when I think that the northern hemisphere system of having Christmas in the middle of winter, and of the academic year, makes more sense.
4. There’s a women’s lifestyle website that I’ve been following for much, if not all, of the last decade. Even though I’m still interested in some of their content, I have decided to unfollow. I want to stop getting distracted reading things which are really a waste of my time and I don’t want all of their headlines invading my Feedly, which is otherwise very bookish and fandom-y.
Instead I’m going to treat it like a news site. I don’t follow any of those, I just check them when I want to read current events. Sometimes that’s several times a day, other times it’s not for weeks on end. Their homepages tend to just highlight today’s posts and if you scroll past something, it’s unlikely to still be there tomorrow. In that space, I find that the things I don’t want to read, and headlines I don’t want to see, are easier to ignore.
5. I did some wardrobe weeding -- and then the next day I went shopping, not specifically to look for clothes but that’s what I ended up buying. So I did more wardrobe weeding and reorganising.
Nearly all of the things I’ve discarded I either wore when I was at high school or else acquired secondhand from a relative or family friend. (I am much better at recognising what styles suit me, and identifying when and why a garment doesn’t suit, than I used to be, and it’s taken trial and error to get here.) All the things I’ve bought this week have been secondhand. I’m telling myself that I am being organised rather than being wasteful.
I’m not wholly convinced, since I have just counted up my shirts and realised that I own more than I thought. (How dare I think of myself as someone who needs more clothes?!)
But I do know that, if I feel like I need more clothes, it’s not because I’m some insatiable monster. Once I amassed a scarf collection that works for me, I stopped feeling a need to add to it.
6. Other secondhand finds include: Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which I have never read and I don’t expect to wholly agree with but I hope will turn out to be entertaining enough to warrant having spent a few dollars on it, and Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment.
[edit: Wrote this Friday but then never posted. Things continue to be okay here.]
Originally @ Dreamwidth.