Day 1396: Migraines
This week was generally a good week. Got more things around the house done, boxes unpacked, spaces uncluttered (my husband is good about major cleaning tasks like de-cluttering). We got Olivia's dresser built, and I sorted her clothes into it. I was surprised to see how many clothes she's already grown out of. I keep worrying I'm not feeding her right but she's growing pretty well, so that's good.
I have watched so much K-drama it's pretty terrible, but I've found an actor I really like, and so I'm watching his back catalogue as well as newest dramas. He was in a drama earlier this year (which, I confess, I am almost done with). The first drama I ever saw him in was airing when I started it, and it just ended.
And his newest drama just started airing. I think his agency is trying to kill him. On the other hand, he did got a best actor nomination for his drama earlier this year, so maybe they're trying to capitalize on that. It would be a smart move.
I also watched a Korean movie (I watched movies before dramas in law school) and it happened to have an actor I really liked from a drama I watched a while ago...and also my new favorite actor, back when he was a child! (He started as a child actor.) So...I have more dramas on my list, not including ones an old colleague of mine recommended. Also...a drama with another actor I like started airing (I was super sad when I couldn't find it on Viki, so I looked up the trailer on YouTube and...it's on Netflix! So I can download eps and watch whenever. Viki has way better subtitles, though.) Watching shows as they air is probably better so I don't binge as much and get more done.
The last few days it's been crazy stormy, which means I've been fending off migraines with meds and copious amounts of caffeine, so I haven't been sleeping well, and so I did enough housework to get by (on top of caring for Olivia, of course) and binged on dramas otherwise. I think Olivia was going through a growth spurt for a couple of days there, because she was eating like crazy and sleeping little, and then the other night she slept for 9 hours. Watching K-dramas on mute and using the subtitles while she fed is what kept me sane when she'd feed seven times in three hours (and not just short snacks, no). Or earphones worked too.
The new modern drama I started watching (because I am also watching historical dramas) is a supernatural one. I had forgotten how terrified I am of Asian ghosts (I blame Ringu and Ju-on in college, and how afterward American ghosts took on a similar bent, and those were always the type of ghosts that freaked me out the most). It did not occur to me that this drama about a ghost hotel would be full of terrifying ghosts. I was totally afraid to go to sleep the other night. Shamelessly let Dingo sleep on the bed with me till my husband came to bed.
And then I remembered how in college I learned that so much of what makes a horror movie is the sound engineering and the score. So? Watch the sometimes scary drama on mute. Save myself nightmares.
There are still some episodes of SPN that I won't watch when I'm home alone or even late at night when I'm not alone (I was not alone when I started watching Hotel Del Luna).
I'm not going to lie: I will totally watch everything an actor has been in because he's attractive, even if he's not a great actor or the movies aren't that great. But this new actor I'm bingeing on - I don't atually think he's hot. He is super adorable, and when he's been sweet and earnest he's like a puppy. What I dig about him is that he tends not to be the typical leading man on a drama, which is the rich aloof jerkface who is mean to the heroine but then falls in love with her anyway (I swear most romances are basically Pride & Prejudice - rich man who is aloof but actually a very good person; poor girl who is spunky and loveable and maybe brings him down a few notches before they get together). He's usually goofy and sweet, not the rich man (he does get bossed around by women an awful lot; the premise of Hotel Del Luna is that he was sort of sold into slavery by his father to work at the hotel? Kinda shady, when you think of it that way). Also in the historical drama I'm watching he played two characters (a prince and pauper scenario) and he really rocked it. He also makes a great villain. He was also in the first high school drama I watched (which was also a historical drama and a vampire drama) and he did well playing essentially multiple roles there (everyone on that show did). I really like how good an actor he is. Also I like that he's not so, as they call it, "whitewashed" a lot of the time; his skin has a really pretty color.
(On the other hand, sometimes I think modern k-pop fans' annoyance at their idols being "whitewashed" seems kind of ethnocentric to me sometimes, when I grew up in Asia and people went around with umbrellas on sunny days not because they wanted to look 'white' but because they wanted to look paler, because rich, educated people work indoors and poor people labor in the sun, a beauty aesthetic that existed before westerners had a lot of contact with Asia; paleness as a mark of beauty is not necessarily "whiteness" being a sign of beauty, though double eyelid surgery has different connotations.)
But mostly I'm in it for his earnest adorable face and how good an actor he is. Given that he's been at it since childhood (and the childhood roles he had weren't just about being small and cute; he brought some heavy drama for a kid), I'm not surprised he's so good. I am also realizing that I understand enough about k-drama to notice whether someone is a good actor or not (at first I couldn't tell).
As much as I love happily ever after endings (and romance dramas pretty much always deliver), I was pleased to watch a drama where the leading man and leading lady didn't get their happily ever after but things ended well, if that makes sense.
Yes. This is my life. Babies and chores and endless amounts of K-drama.
And also family drama and other things I have little energy to talk about.
I have so much gratitude for my online friends. I don't feel like I'm trapped home alone and going insane because of you, even though for some of you I've never seen your faces or heard your voices. Thank you.
Although a couple of times my disproportionate laughter reaction has made my husband think I'm losing my mind. Sometimes I laugh too hard at small things, okay? Okay.
Here's to making it through another week.