fizzawrites

So, in my rush of mild motivation last weekend, I went to my favorite grocery and picked up some peaches along with some yellow heirloom tomatoes with an eye towards making one of my favorite salads. I got it from a video on how to use tomatoes a few years ago, but it's simple and SO GOOD. Basically, slice a ripe peach, a tomato of choice, some fresh basil, and a ball of fresh mozzarella, then toss those with some good olive oil, salt, pepper, and drizzle it all with some really good balsamic vinegar. Eat with bread or just a fork.

( More food chat back here. )

In other news, I've been really enjoying Angela Chen's book, Ace. It's a book who's stated aim is to inform leftie middle class people about what asexuality even is, but is also a really interesting and thoughtful interrogation of thinking about and sitting in our expectations and assumptions when it comes to assumed shared experience as humans. Reviews have made a point at how some readers are frustrated by the author framing their work through the lens of their own experience. I can see where that would be an issue, but I really do like it as a framing device/framework for exploring the subject of sexuality and romantic attraction in general. The point is that even people who claim asexuality and/or aromanticism as an identity or sexuality also have assumptions and expectations to unpack because they're raised in a society and have their own experiences and expectations.

It's honestly a book I think I'd recommend to people aside from the asexuality aspect. (Hilarious, I know.) But I like how gentle this book is about asking the reader to take a hard look at why exploring their own assumptions of identity and sexuality might be difficult and showing that the reader is not alone and that the author had to do that too!

And I did start a book about Mesopotamian cuisine (with translated recipes!) and am looking forward to reading the rest of it. I kind of love the theme that food is such a fundamental and almost boring part of existence that we often don't think to talk about it much or record the day-to-day stuff. But that day-to-day says more about a culture or group of people than pretty much anything else. Food is the intersection of politics, culture, and geography in so many cool ways. Also, I'm reminded I really don't know much about Mesopotamia other than my dim memories of 7th grade World Cultures class. And Ea Nasir's shenaniganery.

I've decided to put down the book I was reading. It's an indie pub that I was actually kind of excited about when I bought it. I followed the writer on YT and generally like their voice and picked up their first novel and promptly forgot about it for ~4 years. Well, I tried it out and it's just not for me. It's only a ~300 page novel and I've been struggling to finish it for almost six months. Time to let it be free and hopefully it'll find it's person.

My library hold for Ace by Angela Chen just came in. I've been meaning to read it since it came out, but it just hasn't happened. Turns out, CPL has the audiobook now (whoo!), so that's going to be my travel book for the next bit. I also have a lower-priority book, Shooting Midnight Cowboy by Glenn Frankel. I finally got hands on the audio cd's via ILL, so now I have a car book! Have I seen MC? No. Will I? Unlikely. Do I like learning about weird ways movies got made? Absolutely.

I'm also going to try to marathon the last ~15 volumes of My Hero Academia in manga format. I stalled out at volume 26, but now that everything is published I want to finish out the series. We'll see how that goes as I tried once before and didn't make it last time. I am also antsy because the last two volumes of the English translation of Ascendance of a Bookworm are coming out in August and September respectively. I stopped reading ~16 books deep because it was clear that the final arc was kicking off and I hate cliffhangers. To the point I will wait ~2.5 years for the translations to be finished/published. This fall will involve a whole lot of reading on my end!

Last but not least, I'm making some real progress on formatting a couple books to bind next month. I've had two primed up and ready to go, but I just got grumpy about the front matter. Citing the author and meta data from the story is deeply important and I will always include it in anything I bind, buuuuuuuuuuuut, for some reason (mental health) I've been unable to push through creating the front matter for the two projects I've got formatted and ready to print. Sometimes, the tiniest obstacle can feel like the largest.

But! I'm making progress on formatting. Y'all, I hate it so much. There are definitely times where my brain purrs like a just-tuned car engine at the prospect of repetitive, formatting work. I taught myself HTML one time and coded an entire damn fic archive by hand. But sometimes, the brain is like "NOPE. NO." and that's been the last year for me. BUT. I'm having an ok time formatting a ~4 book series. Ran into a snag with book #2 in that the html files from AO3 had a lot of junk code added, so I'm having to copy/paste and manually format in Word rather than just going back and editing the italics. Fingers crossed book 3's file will be less annoying.

Update: IT WAS NOT.

Things I did yesterday:

- got stabbed repeatedly before a nap (acupuncture)
- almost died (flash rainstorm/winds as I drove over the Lemont bridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Des_Plaines_River_Valley_Bridge) surrounded by semi’s and suv drivers who do not understand rain)
- ate reasonably decent sushi to celebrate a friend’s bday!
- observed a law enforcement situation in a fenced parking lot while going to drink tea in front of a pizza oven
- got lost going to my bank (but found it!)
- was reminded that driving on the Bishop Ford and the south bit of the Dan Ryan is a competitive sport likely only replicated in New Jersey
- took the incorrectly intended exit and got reminded that The Salt Shed is a fucking bad idea (Christ)
- picked up my cat order @ the pet supplies and did NOT ram my car into the idiots at the hellscape that is six corners in that area (I want answers, city planners!)
- did five loads of laundry but forgot three shirts and my specially commissioned socks in a dryer because I was there until 8:59pm and didn’t do a last check
- hanged dry the load that was in the shitty dryer that didn’t work and put the rest away
- fell asleep in my recliner while watching an episode of Make Some Noise and woke up at 2am with all my lights on and Wink yelling at me for snacks

Things I did today:

- went back to the laundry with three MORE loads and found my shirts and socks where I left them
- cleaned out my fridge and took out the trash (jfc, that was a journey)
- ground coffee for the month
- did two loads of dishes
- put the duvet cover on the newly washed duvet ON THE FIRST TRY
- put freshly washed bedding on, put away all my fresh laundry, and tidied the bedroom
- deep cleaned the sink and put in a load of dishes
- put orphan appliances back in their closet space
- ate carrots and consumed too much coffee

Celebrate your wins, right? 🎉