So, ever since the country locked down, I've been delicately balancing severe executive dysfunction, resultant depression and all the fun side effects. ADHD services are not essential after all. My normal work-outs involve leaving the house and spending time with other people and there's only so long I can tolerate the same four walls before I start going bonkers. Add in that my circadian rhythm is apparently set to Alaskan time and it gets miserable.

My solution to all this has been to go running. At night. While using the Zombies!Run! app. If you're not familiar with it, it's a running/walking app set during a fictious zombie apocalypse and you play as Runner 5, the enigmatic runner who leaves the settlement of Abel to gather supplies and collect clues to figure out how the zombie virus came to be. It's normally a fun app but it's a very different experience when you're running on deserted, too-quiet streets and passing locked up buildings and abandoned parks.

The few other people who exercise at the same time are skittish and it's not unusual to cross the road to avoid people a hundred metres further ahead. At the same time, people genuinely crave human interaction so some people make a point of staying close enough to exchange a quick smile or 'Good evening'. There are more frequent police patrols, ambulances flashing through empty junctions and the taxis who are still rolling. Given that we live in a central urban region, it's really disconcerting. You can still hear people, through the walls and over the garden fences but it feels like they're living in another world.

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Today's book came by a recommendation from Seanan MacGuire who blurbed the book and tweeted about it while she was reading.  BBH pre-ordered it and I finally got around to it today.( Cut for spoiler-ish thinking aloudCollapse )

Overall, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I'd expected to and I will be keeping an eye out for sequels/other books set in this 'verse.

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::blows dust off the journal::

I figure keeping a record of the books that I read will help keep me motivated and help me keep track.  I'm three books into this month so I'm going to mush them all in together in one big post.  These are not particularly deep reviews and are just what I came away from the book feeling.

Book One - The Devil and the White City by Erik Larson

( Cut for spoilersCollapse )

Book Two:  Sane New World: A User's Guide to the Normal-Crazy Mind by Ruby Wax( Very much a personal opinion on this oneCollapse )

Book 3: Macbeth, a true story by Fiona Watson( Good Book, heavy on the family linesCollapse )

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I am planning to hide from all the gloating Tories for the weekend.  I'm honestly appalled by the election results.  I really don't like the idea of the Tories in charge for another five years and I'm fucking pissed that Labour couldn't get their heads out of their arses to exploit the chance to beat them.

 Saving Age of Ultron for post-election escapism might be the best decision made this week.

I originally had intended to write more but honestly, this is bullshit.  This is going to be a disaster.

Fuck this shit.

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On the list of things I needed to close out 2014, losing most of my support network to the belief that my depression can be fixed by wanting it fixed.  I have had nearly a week to adjust to this.  It's a good thing because I'm capable of taking the time to decide if this is a fight I want to have.  I don't have the spoons to try convincing a person, however dear, that addressing my mental health issues is important.  I don't have the energy to keep arguing this.

I need to use my energy to stay moving.  I have very little to spare as it is.

I have managed to complete a project that was **mumble* months in the making.  I have finished Sister the Younger's tea cosy which is blocking on the ironing board.  I am not sure if the ironing board could use a new cover or if we need a new ironing board. I'm thinking a cover since we don't use the board enough for it to be seriously inconvenient to have to bang it into place.  Mostly I am happy to be done with the poppy pattern and to be taking a break from intarsia knitting as a whole.  I am probably going to work on cables next in my knitting projects.

I have a loosely planned idea for a novel involving a centaur girl and a human boy in the American 1930's - YAY for research to be done.  I'm hoping to start writing regardless but I want to decide a few important details like where and when exactly.

I also need to do some gardening this week so fingers crossed for decent weather!

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I ache.  My smart idea to go to a NOVA class last night is costing me in pain today.

I have mostly been on the internet for Duolingo, thanks to the brand new in-Beta Irish course, where I'm discovering that my ear for Gaelige has stayed surprisingly intact, my ability to spell as Gaelige has atrophied completely.  I am finding it hard to stay sitting because my back muscles are not liking the sitting at all.

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For my non-fiction slot - I am choosing 'Stitch'n'Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook' by Debbie Stoller

This is something of a cheat because I have had this book since just after Christmas, courtesy of BBH who has been generously indulgent of my fascination with all things yarn- and haberdashery-based.  I got intrigued by knitting thanks to vae who creates some of the most beautiful and fascinating works with needles and beautiful yarns.

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I am slightly hedging here - I did only read Dracula this year though technically it came before I decided to do the bingo.  That being said, I have thoughts and feels! about this book so I'm counting it for the "One word title" square.
( Cut for length and spoilers (Can you spoil a book that's more than 100 years old?)Collapse )

That said, this was a genuinely interesting and engaging book with powerful, interesting female characters which I would recommend to anyone with a Kindle or time to track down a hard copy.

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This has been floating around the blogosphere for a while and I need to start branching out from my reading preferences so I'm signing up to do this and review the books that I'm reading as I go.
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I have a whole raft of plans for the New Year around various things so I'm breaking them up into different posts so I have a record to use when my resolve falters. I have three instruments that I can tootle along on but that I would not describe as any degree of fluency or acceptable intonation and I want that to change over the next year.

So, breaking it down, my resolutions are under three different headings: Ukulele, tin-whistle and violin.

( ResolutionsCollapse )

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So, my uncle is dying.

( Talk of cancer and the last yearCollapse )

BBH and I are going back to the UK tomorrow.  I have a sinking feeling that I'll be coming back sooner than any of us would have liked.  A part of me is still hoping and another part wants to hide away until it's over.  I want to be able to do something but all we can do is wait and hope and wait some more.

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This has been an interesting year - I couldn't rate it good or bad because honestly, both are true.

I have a whole load of plans for the new year - I want to do more knitting and violining for a start but I'm starting to run another fever so this will have to wait.

Happy New Year, every one!  May 2014 be awesome

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(In our family it's Christmas because we're from Irish Catholic stock and despite a majority of us leaving, some cultural tics stick but good).

So, first Christmas with depression controlled for and a coping strategy for awkward Aspie 'Arrrrrrrrgh, what'ddoIdo!!!!" moments!  It was a success, I think.  My family, being the well-intentioned souls they are, haven't quite adjusted.  There's this space around me where the depression used to be and occasionally, they'll be surprised because I'm not following the pattern that they expect and there'll be a second where they're readjusting and it feels weird but also good.

It helps having a too-adorable for words baby nephew who is the living definition of perpetual motion.  He got his first proper hurl, courtesy of his proud grandfather and insisted on going out to play in the back garden with the elderly Shih Tzu limping along behind.

The main reason that I am posting is to gush about my Yuletide present - Only Me Shall Reign - a mythology-based Sigyrn/Loki fic which is really a Sigyrn fic that makes me so happy that I was dancing around the room after reading it.  It's whole-heartedly Sigyrn's story and she is completely the heroine with all the familar faces from mythology there to help paint a picture of her character and her choices.  I love it to itty bitty pieces and I've already copied it safely to the Kindle for enjoying on Family Excursions tomorrow and the next day.

You should totally read it and leave kudos and comments for the wonderful author who wrote it.

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So Yuletide is finished and betaed and submitted! 

I am proud and relieved and grateful to deannawol  for speedy beta-ing and butt-kicking as needed.  And I have also caught up on comments in Ao3 so hopefully if you left a comment there, you should have gotten a reply.

I also got a new crochet hook (3.5mm) which is the one that features most prominently in the Amigurumi! book that has been collecting dust on the shelf for a few years.  The book is coming back with me for the holidays so I'm hoping to make at least one of the patterns in it before the new year.

Tomorrow is playing music, painting or modelling.  I have a whole collection of Fimo in a drawer that I keep meaning to use.  It's also packing, wrapping and getting ready to head out for the ferry.  I'm not sure how much internet I can rely on in Ireland or how much time I'll spend on the computer anyway.

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So, I've been very bad about keeping this updated.  That seems to be how all my posts start these days, so I'm going to have to keep up posting just so I have something original to do.

I had plans for November then kyabett lured me to the Nano side with the promise of chocolate.  I managed my fifty thousand words - apparently when you've spent a few years tackling Big Bangs, fifty thousand words starts to be a much more achievable goal.  I did an original project which is marinating.  I basically wrote an outline starting years before the story starts so oh, boy is there a lot of chopping and cutting and rewriting to do. 

First comes Yuletide and I'm wandering back and forth on the idea I have. Tomorrow is my big blitz day (also known as 'Ara catches up with everything that needs doing before Christmas!!') so I'm clearing all of my to-do list and getting things done.

One reason that I haven't been talkative lately is that my depression is better.  Yay?  Yes....but it's brought up a new problem.  I've known since I was in my early twenties that I'm an Aspie but I never had so many problems with the triggers and stresses.  I thought I was just lucky - I could push through and manage just fine.

Yeah, no.  It turns out that the depression just masked it.  It's hard to notice the signs of stress when you are past caring about anything at all.  My depression did have that as an upside, who'd thought it?  It's nice to know that it's working but wow, it's taking a lot of conscious effort to break bad habits and to notice when I'm being unnecessarily harsh on myself for something that is making me uncomfortable.

My solution to this has turned out to be knitting and crochet.  (I totally blame vae  for introducing me to the wonder of shiny needles and pretty wool.)  I've started learning how to knit (all hail deannawol of infinite patience and the kindly-not-laughing-at-me) and how to crochet (which is almost entirely down to maeritrae giving me a guide to the basic stitches).

I'm also on Ravelry, in case there is anyone else I haven't found yet who is in there.

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1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favourite quote
4. What are you afraid of?
5. 10 songs you love right now

Okay, so these are presented in no particular order and without commentary because why I like a song is not something that can be put in neatly rational statements.  These are songs that I really like right now (and I could have added a hundred songs easily)

i) I Don't Care - Steam Powered Giraffe cover of Icona Pop's song.

ii) Birthday - the Cruxshadows.  A perennial favourite of mine

iii) Coldplay - Paradise (Peponi) African Style (ft. guest artist, Alex Boye) - The Piano Guys covering Coldplay

iv) Smooth Criminal - David Garrett covering Michael Jackson's hit.

v) Amaranth - Nightwish

vi) Monstrous Child - Bad Pollyanna.  A more recent find.

vii) Monster - Kris Allen

viii) Dragonrider - Two Steps From Hell

ix) Runnin' - Adam Lambert

x) Shadows - Lindsey Stirling.  Possibly my favourite violin song.
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1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favourite quote
4. What are you afraid of?

Hoooo, boy, is that ever a list.  I am afraid of a lot of things.  Some of them are rational but most of them really aren't.

Snakes.  This is probably only the one that actually ranks as a phobia.  This is wholly irrational, I have visceral "nopenopenopenopeNOPENOPE" reactions to pictures of snakes.  Anything that moves like a snake triggers the flinch and panicky reactions.  I used to be afraid of snakes under the bed in the dark and I spent a ghastly month being convinced that a toilet in my grandmother's house had a snake lurking behind the S-bend because it hissed. 
I had nightmares about needing to use the toilet while a cobra was sitting in the bowl with the hood raised.

Heights.  More accurately, I am afraid of edges.  I  am totally fine with flying and I am totally okay with being on a high floor in a building.  Even strapped into a roller coaster, I can manage.  What I am not okay with is being able to peer down into the abyss.  If there is any chance that I could fall, I am petrified and may actually freeze in place until led away by kindly persons.  I will also latch onto anything stable and back away as much as I can.

Social events.  I get very talkative when I'm nervous.  I live in eternal dread of the polite glazing of eyes and the 'oh, that's nice' moment.  I don't do well if I don't know people or have something that I can have in common with them and my socializing skill is very limited.  I don't like making people uncomfortable unless I have a very good reason to do so and when I'm nervous, I make people uncomfortable because I'm so uncomfortable.

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1. Introduction and recent photo
2. 20 facts about you
3. Your favourite quote

Playing around a little with the formatting because I'm not copy-pasting that list the whole time.

I don't really have a single favourite quote. I have a lot of them stowed around for the right moment but three of my current go-tos are, in no particular order.


“You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.”
― Dita Von Teese


"And the Day Two pain of the gym! When you go back to the gym and you're in agony, and every bit of you is in pain. And the gym guy, you go up to him, you go "Why am I in so much pain?"—and he goes "That's because you're using muscles you haven't used in years." And you look at him and go "Why the fuck are we wasting our time with those muscles?"
-Dara Ó Briain

.
"Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness."
Terry Pratchett

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Dearest and most fabulous of authors,

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Thank you again and I can't wait to read whichever story you write.
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