Plane Icons

oh hey, I don't think I actually posted the medialog I wrote last night, whoops. We'll get that in Sacramento, then.

Here is some iconography, mostly from the Alaska Airlines QX E175 safety card, and one from PDX:

( I like the part of my neurospice that prompts me to notice LOTS OF THINGS because it means I can sometimes really enjoy and appreciate that which has been carefully considered and designed! )

~Sor
MOOP!

Is this FridayBooks or Saturday? No one really knows!

editor's note: pretend all the book titles are underlined, I lost the html in transit and can't be arsed to put it back since I'm typing this on my phone.

Anyways, my original goal was to take a break from Network Effect, which is excellent but stressful, and write my words before I get too sleepy, so that when I land in Portland for my very long late-night layover, I can upload them from the computer and not have to have done typey-typey on my phone. My secondary goal was to do a medialog post, because it's been over a week and I've been busy!

Finished Reading Recently:

I went on vacation for like 3.5 days, where my only goals were "see eclipse, make out with partner, read books" and I met all three of those goals in spades. Last week on Wednesday, I finished the first cycle of Murderbot Diaries (by Martha Wells) by completing Exit Strategy and making all sorts of wibbly faces about SecUnit and its feeeeeeeelings. I was all ready to dive into Network Effect, but a well-timed warning from Elishka told me I didn't want to be reading that one in the morning on the way to school, and unable to read it straight through. This turned out to be a really good warning, more about that later.

On Friday and Saturday, I read one of the many books recommended by the Unshelved book club. It's a graphic novel omnibus called "The PLAIN Janes" (Cecil Castelluci and Jim Rugg) and it's about art and trauma and high school and the suburbs. It feels familiar to me in nostalgic sorts of ways, these are the sorts of things the Lesley University Chaos Club would've done if we'd gotten properly off the ground.

Sunday was for re-reading Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (which I was amused to find on Sam and Bean's shelves as well --I needn't have brought a library copy after all!). It's interesting, the first read of this particular book was stellar, an experience I'd recommend to anyone, especially if you pause for pangram practice somewhere in the middle. But the re-read felt rather more lukewarm. I find the romance plots trite and uninteresting, the political upheaval does not have the weight it should, and the prose is -intentionally! to great effect!- fairly overwrought. Maybe I just need to go longer between re-reads? Unclear, and disappointing.

Sometime on Monday I started Exit Strategy, and got like...a chapter and a half in, just enough to say suddenly and decisively "oh yep, this is stressful as shit". So I set that back down and focused on working with SamSam to see if we could connect bonus overdrive/libby accounts to Talia, so she can check books out from other places than just the minuteman. (verdict: sorta, but it seems likely I'd have to fully log out and in again to switch books, and that seems irritating and also not definite. The more likely outcome is that I will do that Libby-linking on my phone (much easier) and just read non-minuteman books there?

Anyways, between stressful book and brain-hard tech work, I needed something mindless and fluffy, so I finally actually picked up The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. It is delightful candy! I think the cover blurb says "a warm witchy hug of a book" and yes definitely that! No stress, lovely worldbuilding, a very satisfying happily ever after (for now), and a gay supporting character who I am definitely picturing as Ian McKellen in glitter boots. I think this marks the first time I have ever officially finished reading a romance novel, so good job, turns out I like this genre too!

Currently Reading:

I have just started chapter 15 of Network Effect, and if you give me spoilers I will kill you. I was able to really pick it back up on Thursday, sorta gently forcing myself through the really intense first eight and a half chapters. And my timing worked out shockingly perfect, because Thursday was the day of eight thousand things happening in my brain and I couldn't cope with all of them, but I got to the phrase "in case of emergency, run" just about the time the train was pulling into Haymarket station on my way to surprise-Thursday-bells and ohhh, I was literally bouncing up and down and giggling with mad glee.

The rest of the book has been normal SecUnit stressful, just longer.

I'm not actually in the middle of anything else except that Squirrel Girl GN I keep poking at, and That Time I Got Drunk And Threw A Love Potion At A Demon, neither of which I've actually done any reading for recently, but both of which I'm in the middle of and intend to return to. (Love Potion is hard, because I know now that it really works for me, which means I don't wanna read it in spacetimes where I'm not willing to be horny.)

Oh, and Unshelved is still open on my work computer, but I'm intentionally taking a break from it to try and cut back on my TBR pile and return some of my library books. Progress is being made tho! I think I'm down to like..22. Oh. No. Still 28. Whoops. Maybe this week I will manage to wipe some more of them out? At any rate, at least two are now officially overdue and I won't be able to check out more until I return those, so that's useful.

Reading in the Future:

Books I am bringing with me to California: Modesty Blaise, Debbie Harry Sings in French, In the Serpent's Wake, two Squirrel Girls, and a nonfiction book about zines. Plus everything on the ereader.

I saw a Halligan(iv...) bar over the weekend and got so excited that I reread like two dozen Leftover Soup comics, and now I'm itching to binge that archive.

I have a spreadsheet now, because I successfully realized that LibraryThing is great and I should go back to it sometime, but spreadsheets are easy and my one true love. It notes Cat Valente's Space Opera (recommended by So'n'So) and Orphan's Tales (not specifically recommended by anyone, but I saw two volumes of them on Sam and Bean's shelves, and was reminded that I really ought to read the novels that are for the companion album(s)). Sam was surprised to learn I've never read any NK Jemison --valid thing to be surprised at, and JoshZed was aghast and agog when I said I hadn't read any of the Young Wizard series. So they're all on the docket!

Goodnight!

~Sor
MOOP!