Unevenness

The humidity is fluctuating a lot right now. I have cuts on my tongue because my mouth dried out in my sleep. I am hot but then cold as soon as I remove the blankets on me. I wish things would just stay consistent.

I wrote some today and knitted. More of the story is revealing itself to me. I'll try to write some more tonight but at the moment I'm a bit distracted because honestly, tongue cuts are the worst.

Out into the Ice

Today we decided to go shopping. It's weird outside because one side of the driveway was completely dry and the other side was covered in jagged ice. I would give anything to have a functioning carport by the house. Alas.

Anyway, the streets were fine. We did both stores and picked up lunch. It was bitterly cold out there. 

We're close to March and I'm very ready for winter to be over. I'm not looking forward to summer, but at least summer is brighter than this. That's something.

Experiments and Results

The last story topped out at about 76 hits and 9 Kudos. More kudos than the last story, but not as many hits. It's early days with my fic writing so I'm not discouraged. 

I tried to make some charts today and do my own patterns in my knitting. This did not work out super great, but again, early days. I'm not discouraged.

We may go out tomorrow. It depends on how much of the ice has melted. 

Better Light

The new light in the living room is great. It helps so much and helps me to stay in a better mood. If you're having trouble during the darker months, add more light in the major rooms you stay in. It might help you.

I knitted most of the day and listened to Youtube stuff over vampires. It was a good day.

Ice

So there is ice outside. It's nasty and awful. I'm hoping it doesn't last long. We had to put up a new light in the living room because it's so dim in here. That certainly helped a lot.

Winter Prep Again

As was the case a few weeks ago, today we went out and bought extra supplies to get us through what could possibly be an ice storm. I'm hoping it doesn't happen, but that is always my hope in these matters. I guess February has lots of drama to make it feel longer than it is.

I wrote some earlier today but I'm taking the evening to just knit and plot. I'm at a good place with the knitting right now and I want to focus on that for bit.

Feedback

I received a comment on the new story. The person said my version of events was now their accepted headcanon of those events. What greater compliment could there be?

Tomorrow we have to do some unusual errands because it's supposed to get stupid weatherwise later this week. I'll be so glad when winter business is over.

More Writing

I posted another fic today. It's had 22 hits and five kudos, which puts it at better numbers than the other two. I was really proud of this piece.

I think one of the things I like the best about fic writing is that the challenge isn't writing a plot so much as it is writing within one. You know the characters will act certain ways and do certain things. You have some choices about how they get there, but that's all. It presents an interesting challenge, one that marries beautifully with the love one has for the characters. 

I'm resting a few days to consider things, then I'll start up again. 

A Useful Friday

I had therapy over Zoom again. We discussed the collage I did. She'd never had anyone do it via photoshop before and really enjoyed the results. 

After that, I did some knitting and worked on my next fic. It might be ready by Sunday. 

I put on makeup for the Zoom to try and give myself at least a bit of color. I'm not sure that worked exactly, but I did get several hours of watery eyes out of it. So...yay I guess?

Dark Thursday

It's cold again. My body is running hot right now so I'm not noticing it as much as I should. I don't have a fever. This is more like some weird chemical process my body is don't. It isn't overly hot, just uncomfortable. 

Unless you have a regular following and subscribers, normally things on the Tolkien AO3 get seen for about a day or two before newer offerings flood the list. I topped out at about 73 hits with one comment and 6 kudos. I guess I can live with that.  It's more hits but fewer kudos than the last story. 

I think I'm going to stay in this version of the world though. It isn't my usual headcanon but it's interesting. 

Delighted

I received my first comment on a fanfic! I'm so completely delighted by this. No matter what else happens today, my writing moved someone. 

Once again, kindness is the greatest form of anarchy. Negative comments can make people react but in a usually predictable way. Positive comments can spur people on to greatness. 

Or, in my case, more fanfiction.

Where to Sit

The '80s couch is finally dying. We need to replace it. This shouldn't be a problem, but it is.

There is the matter of transport. We need the couch brought to the house and the old couch removed. We cannot do this ourselves. It kind of puts us in a bind as to where can purchase the couch. 

Money is an issue, but also not an issue as we've set a reasonable budget and will not go over that. With our finances and cats in the house (who will mess with any couch we get), there is just no reason to spend a lot of money.

The biggest issue is the availability of couch types. Most of the ones in our area are really large or just fancied-up futons. There seems to be no middle ground of just a nice, streamlined couch. I don't think that's too much to ask but oddly it seems to be. 

VD 2022

For the most part, this was just a regular Monday for us. We went shopping and I talked to my dad on the phone.

We did get some cheap VD candy from the store. That's always nice. I spent the rest of the day combing through info on Rings of Power. 

I finished the collage for therapy and emailed it. I'm happy I managed to get that accomplished. 

Quiet Weekend

There is a bunch of stuff I need to be doing and I mostly did none of it this weekend. I knitted and I played Sims and I wrote a few paragraphs and that's about it.

Have I been depressed this weekend? Kinda. Maybe. Mostly. I'm really not sure. I think I've more so just been zoned out. That's been a good deal of the winter though.

We have a lot of appointments this week. It's literally taking most of the week. Hopefully we'll make it through them with no issues. 

The Vanity Fair Article

I read the Vanity Fair article over Rings of Power and I have concerns. I don't have concerns over the diversity of the cast or the inclusion of more femme characters, so if you're here for that, you're not going to get it. I'm fine with both.

I am, however, concerned with three things mentioned in the article. I know the article isn't the set-in-stone facts of the show so I'm keeping an open mind. However, I am still concerned. 

The first issue is the way they're condensing time. I knew they would have to, given that the Second Age spans several thousand years with lots of time spent between major events. I knew we would mostly see the highlights. However, condensing things to one extended event that happens in the lifespan of our human characters is not the way I would have gone about it. It's not logical. 

I thought the way they would do it would be to have their Elves as the main and consistent cast with a revolving cast of the other races. Honestly, that would have shown the time passage in a really smooth, if heart-wrenching way. And the thing is, that kind of IS one of the themes of the Second Age. Elrond loses his twin and then watches generations of his twin's family be born, grow up, and die. Losing people he loves is the basic theme of Elrond's life, really, culminating in his loss of his daughter during the Third Age. 

This brings me to my next concern, actually. They described Elrond as politically ambitious. I guess that could mean a lot of things, but to my mind, it seems that he is trying to GAIN power, which, again, is not in any way how this character is presented. Elrond has royal blood from several different royal families and he was raised by his kidnapdads foster fathers to rule. He never wanted that though or at the very least, felt it wasn't his place. Instead, he supported Gil's rule and advised him. Eventually, this leads to him ruling his own area, but not by his own ambitions. 

The person who is ambitious to rule during the Second Age is Galadriel. And look, I'm not saying that in a bad way. It seems to me that Melian used Galadriel's time in Doriath (where she was basically an unofficial political hostage) to teach her to rule, to be the next Melian, given that Melian probably knew on some level her own sojourn in Middle Earth was coming to an end.  

I felt like Galadriel's plotline in this series was the easiest to translate from the book. She founds a city with her husband and asks her second cousin to come help them run things. Her cousin makes some seriously bad decisions and they fight about it.  She ends up leaving the city after his political overthrow and goes to live with one of her husband's kinsmen. Later her cousin realizes he made some seriously horrible mistake and gives her a Ring as a way to make amends. It is an emotionally intense plotline with a full gambit of emotions. There is no need to change from this.

And you know, maybe it's still there. I know there is a lot of secrecy around the show and they don't want to spoil things for people. Second Age has one of the best Villain Reveals ever and if they can pull it off, they can probably make the show a masterpiece. To do that, they probably do need to keep some details obscured at this point.

No matter what they do, I'm still going to watch the show. My tastes often skew from other people and the general hype around things (I happen to love Sims 4's Star Wars game pack, for instance), and know that there will be things I probably love about Rings of Power.

Okay, actually, I'll be honest here. All they have to do is make Sauron delightfully evil and I'll be happy. As long as his evil is keeping me entertained, I should be fine. 

That Gaggle

On days when I do therapy at the park, I get to watch the most dangerous group in my hometown....the wicked gaggle of white geese. Okay, geese and two white ducks. I have no idea why the ducks get to hang with them, but they do.

These geese are mean. They run at people and hiss at them. They seem to hate everyone.

I kind of get it though. The other day I was thinking about how uncomfortable the concept of feathers seems to be. The quill portion of the feather that goes inside the skin is thick. I'd be pissed off too.

Reworking

I'm refocusing on what I was writing. It just wasn't doing what I needed it to do. I started over with a stand-alone short story this time. I think that will work better.

I was in pain today and my breathing was bad. It's put a damper on a lot of things, though not the kind of emotional damper I had to deal with last night. Emotionally I was far better today. Which is a lovely thing.

Through the Mud

I wrote some today. I think about 1000 words. I want a few more chapters ready before I publish. They're getting there. 

I get tripped up on two things. One is that Tolkien uses a lot of non-standard letters in his names. I have to keep pausing to either cut and paste stuff or find it in the Insert Special Character tool.

The other issue is trying to write about things happening at certain times without using sun/moon movement. We don't have those yet or concepts like day and night. I keep forgetting that and adding them. Uggh. 

Anyway, at least some more was written.

Bills Done

We paid the rest of the bills today. I don't have to worry about that for another month. Yay. I also got my free Covid tests in. Hopefully, we won't have to use them. 

I watched some videos over the posters for Rings of Power. I got into a discussion in the comments with Maglor about one we both thought was Celebrimbor. I also told Maglor I was glad he was happy enough these days to use the internet. He said he found the phone on the beach. Hah!

Warmer

Even though we still have some snow on the driveway and yard, we have a lot more melt than we had before. Hopefully, by tomorrow, the majority of it will be gone. Hopefully, it won't snow anymore this winter. I hates it forever.

Speaking of JRRT things, we now have some teaser posters for Rings of Power. They're pretty neat, even if we can't see anyone's faces. They've also announced some of the actors who will be handling the roles. No one is happy about the rumored Celebrimbor, but I'm going to try and keep an open mind.

Outing

We left the house today. We needed to handle some errands and do a bit of shopping that couldn't be handled on Wednesday. 

My roommate was the hero here. He made sure the stoop was free of ice and move the cars around. I drove us, but it was mostly on clear roads. Most of the time, they were even dry. 

As I am a snow/ice weenus, I was scared. There was always a great deal of relief when I was out of the elements. Despite that, I have to admit it was good to get out. We needed it. 

A Tad Melted

The roads are clear but the outside of the house isn't. I really need to build a carport. Keeping the area next to the backdoor and my car out of the elements would be a year-round improvement in our lives.

But that isn't the case now so everything is still icy. It's supposed to be warmer the next two days. Hopefully things will melt soon. That really needs to happen.

Ruining It

They emailed me this worksheet from therapy about how to build habits. The ideas were sound, but one of the examples got me wondering. It talked about reading a page from a book every night. At first, I wondered if everyone had the same kind of attention span issues that I have. Then it occurred to me that a lot of people don't allow themselves to read for pleasure.

Look, I'm all for educating yourself. I'm all for self-improvement. I've read quite a few books of the non-fiction sort that have done wonders to change my life. However, I do not and will not allow that to be my primary reason to read. There are too many wonderful books out there for your reading time to be dedicated to just.....improvement. Stop it. Reading should be about enjoyment too. It should be about escape and losing yourself in other people's lives. It should be something that fills your soul. 

I'm sure people could argue that my dislike of doing things out of obligation or because they're good for me is a big flaw in my lifeplan. They're probably not wrong. I just can't imagine losing my happy time with books.

Point in My Personal History

I had my first Zoom meeting today. It was a therapy session. The app was easy to use and understand. That part was fine.

I'm not sure if it worked well as a therapy medium for me. I was distracted by how bad I looked. I just couldn't get an angle that worked for me and I'm just vain enough to let that matter. Maybe I'll get used to it the way I've gotten used to the sound of my own voice. After all, it is a benefit for anyone who wants to do face to face stuff without leaving the house....and that's so me. 

Strange Winter

It's supposed to start snowing tomorrow but I have a fan on right now because my body is trying really hard to have a hotflash. I've been fighting it all day. It isn't fever. Fever feels different than this. This is heat radiating from my hands and moving through the rest of me. Ugghh.

Anyhow, tomorrow we're going shopping. IF things are clean on Saturday, we'll go out to get other errands handled. If not, those will wait. Unless things change though, it should be fine by then.

If I had better balance, would be I be less of a snow weenus? Probably.