also it hasn't been hot which is nice
What I just finished reading:
the dark queens: the bloody rivalry that forged the medieval world which honestly was probably historical fiction as much as straight up historical because there just isn't that much that survived about the two queens. i should name them, huh - brunhild and fredegund, who weren't allowed to sit on a throne because they were women but ended up as kind of co-rulers with their husbands (at least until their husbands were killed - there seems to have been a lot of regicide in sixth century france) (fredegund especially was pretty stabby) and then regents for their sons. i did not end up drawing a family tree but since so many people ended up dead it's probably just as well. i learned some things about a period of history i know nothing about, so that was cool.
also killadelphia vols 1 and 2, written by rodney barnes and drawn by jason shawn alexander, in which vampires take over philadelphia under the leadership of... vampire john adams. with vampire abigail adams. the first one was recommended to me by a very enthusiastic employee of my local comic shop and i liked it enough to get the second one. it's a very bloody and violent comic - i mean, vampires, this shouldn't be a surprise - but i liked the existence of a vampire founding father (and founding mother) and it's got some prickly father-son dynamics to give it some personal heft and one of the adamses' vampire followers has a lovely relationship with his (human) grandmother and a kind of ambiguously antagonistic relationship with the main character and you get backstories on some of the vampire followers so they're not all just "vampire follower" - they're actual, uh, people - and overall i'm enjoying it.
What I am reading now:
brunelleschi's dome: how a renaissance genius reinvented architecture, by ross king. i'm learning a lot about renaissance building projects - not just how they erected the dome of the duomo - and how you built what is still the biggest masonry vault in the world when it was the fifteenth century and none of the workmen could read the architectural drawings. (you built a model. a very big model. like, the model of the duomo was like thirteen feet high.) also, how do you hoist the ridiculously large and heavy pieces of wood and sandstone for the dome a couple hundred feet in the air when your only crane option is made of wood? (gears, cogwheels, pulleys, and two oxen.) it's fascinating but i wish the book had more and clearer diagrams. i mean, it's really cool to see brunelleschi's drawings but they're, you know, fifteenth century drawings and kind of hard to read.
What I'm going to read next:
killadelphia vol 3. :D after that, no idea.
on monday i took my car to be inspected and it needed slightly more work than i was expecting. my poor baby. it's like twelve years old, i should've expected something. but at least now the front tires don't squeak any more.
so there's a web comic called girls with slingshots (adorable and i highly recommend it) and danielle corsetto, the creator, is going on tour to celebrate its twentieth birthday. (twenty. O.O ) on sunday she was at a comic shop near me (but not my lcs) so i drove over to meet her - because did i mention her web comic is very cute and i've been reading it a long time - and perhaps buy something and she was adorable and her cousin who lives nearby and was playing assistant for the boston stop was also adorable and it was just a fun time. i realize i'm probably preaching to at least some of the choir here but if you have the chance to meet in a nice low key setting someone who makes a thing you like i suggest you do so.
saturday i went to ikea and a couple other furniture stores with my sister so she could buy a desk. she found one at ikea but it was (temporarily) out of stock so we'll have to go back when it's in stock so she can set up her desk and fully unpack her guest room. and then because it was the anniversary of our dad's death we went to see him (by which i mean we drove by the entrance to the cemetery twice) and then had dinner and then went back to her house so she could show me pictures of couches. she wants an armless pullout couch for the guest room. they're cute and will fit in the space and are possibly out of her budget. she'll figure something out.
i'm taking friday off because i can and am very excited about it. the next submission for writing group is very long - 31,500 words and 109 pages - so i should probably spend some quality time reading it.
at washington university in st louis you can take a class on the science of cats. the prof basically uses cat behavior to teach his students how scientists study biodiversity. no word on whether or not any cats ever visit the class.
the dark queens: the bloody rivalry that forged the medieval world which honestly was probably historical fiction as much as straight up historical because there just isn't that much that survived about the two queens. i should name them, huh - brunhild and fredegund, who weren't allowed to sit on a throne because they were women but ended up as kind of co-rulers with their husbands (at least until their husbands were killed - there seems to have been a lot of regicide in sixth century france) (fredegund especially was pretty stabby) and then regents for their sons. i did not end up drawing a family tree but since so many people ended up dead it's probably just as well. i learned some things about a period of history i know nothing about, so that was cool.
also killadelphia vols 1 and 2, written by rodney barnes and drawn by jason shawn alexander, in which vampires take over philadelphia under the leadership of... vampire john adams. with vampire abigail adams. the first one was recommended to me by a very enthusiastic employee of my local comic shop and i liked it enough to get the second one. it's a very bloody and violent comic - i mean, vampires, this shouldn't be a surprise - but i liked the existence of a vampire founding father (and founding mother) and it's got some prickly father-son dynamics to give it some personal heft and one of the adamses' vampire followers has a lovely relationship with his (human) grandmother and a kind of ambiguously antagonistic relationship with the main character and you get backstories on some of the vampire followers so they're not all just "vampire follower" - they're actual, uh, people - and overall i'm enjoying it.
What I am reading now:
brunelleschi's dome: how a renaissance genius reinvented architecture, by ross king. i'm learning a lot about renaissance building projects - not just how they erected the dome of the duomo - and how you built what is still the biggest masonry vault in the world when it was the fifteenth century and none of the workmen could read the architectural drawings. (you built a model. a very big model. like, the model of the duomo was like thirteen feet high.) also, how do you hoist the ridiculously large and heavy pieces of wood and sandstone for the dome a couple hundred feet in the air when your only crane option is made of wood? (gears, cogwheels, pulleys, and two oxen.) it's fascinating but i wish the book had more and clearer diagrams. i mean, it's really cool to see brunelleschi's drawings but they're, you know, fifteenth century drawings and kind of hard to read.
What I'm going to read next:
killadelphia vol 3. :D after that, no idea.
on monday i took my car to be inspected and it needed slightly more work than i was expecting. my poor baby. it's like twelve years old, i should've expected something. but at least now the front tires don't squeak any more.
so there's a web comic called girls with slingshots (adorable and i highly recommend it) and danielle corsetto, the creator, is going on tour to celebrate its twentieth birthday. (twenty. O.O ) on sunday she was at a comic shop near me (but not my lcs) so i drove over to meet her - because did i mention her web comic is very cute and i've been reading it a long time - and perhaps buy something and she was adorable and her cousin who lives nearby and was playing assistant for the boston stop was also adorable and it was just a fun time. i realize i'm probably preaching to at least some of the choir here but if you have the chance to meet in a nice low key setting someone who makes a thing you like i suggest you do so.
saturday i went to ikea and a couple other furniture stores with my sister so she could buy a desk. she found one at ikea but it was (temporarily) out of stock so we'll have to go back when it's in stock so she can set up her desk and fully unpack her guest room. and then because it was the anniversary of our dad's death we went to see him (by which i mean we drove by the entrance to the cemetery twice) and then had dinner and then went back to her house so she could show me pictures of couches. she wants an armless pullout couch for the guest room. they're cute and will fit in the space and are possibly out of her budget. she'll figure something out.
i'm taking friday off because i can and am very excited about it. the next submission for writing group is very long - 31,500 words and 109 pages - so i should probably spend some quality time reading it.
at washington university in st louis you can take a class on the science of cats. the prof basically uses cat behavior to teach his students how scientists study biodiversity. no word on whether or not any cats ever visit the class.