The Cracked Mug v 2.0

[erikakaiser]

Weird start to the workweek!

Baby Dog was super super clingy this morning, to the point I took her out for a second morning walkies because I was wondering if she had to potty or had an upset tummy or something. Nope, just clingy!

Anyway, tl;dr I think she may have been reacting to me being under the weather before I even realized I was, because around 9:00 AM I got super nauseous and icky feeling. I have no idea what brought it on and tried to power through but after I walked to pick up Baby's meds and back, ended up going back to bed for another hour or so (which Baby was happy to assist with). I felt better enough after resting that I puttered around to get ready for work then couch-flopped until I had to leave for said work. I still feel a little gross but I'm not made of sick days so uhh, we stay silly.

[erikakaiser]

Felt better yesterday! I think the sudden grossness may have actually just been an obnoxious menstrual symptom, since later that day I started my period. I dunno, man, bodies and uteruses are dumb and I'm just along for the ride.

Anyway!

The Look of the Old West: A Fully Illustrated Guide by William Foster-Harris
Two cowboy hats

1663618.jpg

EH

I grabbed this from the library for a writing reference and it's inferior to the similar book I read last year, partially for reasons that are just my own personal taste (this book is much more Civil War focused, which I do not care about or want to emulate in my storyverse) and partially because from both the vibe I got reading it and the Goodreads blurb:

With encyclopedic knowledge and an extensive collection of Old West memorabilia handed down to him from Civil War veterans, cowboys, frontiersmen, and Native Americans, William Foster-Harris truly understood what the days of cowboys and trail drivers looked and felt like.

Iiiii think this is a Civil War nerd who owned some cowboy hats and decided that was enough to make him a spontaneous subject matter expert. It's possible he has his PhD in cowboyology or whatever (at a curious but quick Google I actually can't find much about him, except that he wrote this and two other books that are about how to write things, which seems odd for someone with no published fiction I can easily find). Anyway, I yoinked a few things, notably further information on cattle brands because I'm percolating the idea of cattle brands mixed with magic runes.

Polish Customs, Traditions, and Folklore by Sophie Hodorowicz Knab
Four stars

1106549.jpg

This was organized by month and was really interesting! I did skim it a bit, especially when it started to just describe Catholic holidays, but it was well-written and helpfully-illustrated.

That's me caught up! I'm excited to start getting back into some fiction now, though. I didn't quite have the brain for it lately, which is why I moved the things I had on my list to trowel for writing inspiration/worldbuilding to the top of my reading queue, but I've got another Vampire Hunter D light novel up next and I'd like to finish the Drizzt Do'Urden origin trilogy.

#books2024

[erikakaiser]

With encyclopedic knowledge and an extensive collection of Old West memorabilia handed down to him from Civil War veterans, cowboys, frontiersmen, and Native Americans, William Foster-Harris truly understood what the days of cowboys and trail drivers looked and felt like.

Also to scrutinize this again I am extremely skeptical this random white guy was directly handed down memorabilia by Native Americans

[erikakaiser]

Over the past few days I watched Gab Smolders (one of the few streamers I can handle watching Let's Plays from) play through Alien Isolation, because Alien Day was recently and I remembered it exists. It's not the type of game I'd like to play because I have absolutely zero patience for stealth, but watching it was nice! It's a really great addition to the franchise, in a franchise that is full of ....... uh, extremely not great additions. The game has honestly perfect atmosphere/music/technology, like even the way the player character hacks into things and the clicky-clacky old school keyboards are top notch. The writing is pretty good, too! It definitely leans into "everything is Weyland-Yutani's fault" so it's familiar territory but I enjoyed the journey.

[Fetian]

because I'm percolating the idea of cattle brands mixed with magic runes.

[erikakaiser]

I saw someone refer to White-Mask Varre from Elden Ring as a "fruity little sadist" and, like, yeah

I love him but, yeah

[erikakaiser]

He's a real doctor

[Fetian]

"fruity little sadist" is my favourite archetype

[erikakaiser]

So there's a trend I'm noticing of "middle aged women will do anything to not work out" referring to videos poking fun at women doing like, bungee aerobics (I don't know if that's what it's called but that's what it looks like) or some kind of cardio where you hop around on springy boots; you can kinda see what I mean here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/dTvOlaGeK1M?si=Vrb8-3zrmYTbJhiw
(warning that the sound for that is extremely annoying)

and holy shit everyone shut the fuck up

Working out is boring, working out sucks. I like to go running because it's a soothing activity for me, and part of the reason is because it requires zero brain input and I can just space out and daydream.

aka, it's boring

Your body hurts and you are outside, that's the bit. I like it, but I completely understand when people don't. The same goes for lifting weights, which I personally do find a little boring and which doesn't even have the perk of being easy to parse like running is. Running is you put on shoes, you go outside, you move at a pace faster than your normal walking speed. It took me forever to get brave enough to start strength training because it requires knowing how to do exercises (and often doing so in front of strangers), figuring out what order to do them in and with how much weight, etc. Sure, there's guidance online, but a lot of it is conflicting, tied up in diet culture, and frequently outright monetized. Plus now you're doing tons of homework before you even get to the physically unpleasant part!

(And that's not getting into nutrition, which is its own difficult and separate hell especially for anyone with disordered eating problems.)

Anyways, I just wish more people acknowledged that:

1) exercising can be (often is!) painful and boring
2) spending hours of time physically in the gym and/or planning what you are going to be doing in the gym is not possible for some people, either because they cannot or will not and both of those things have nothing to do with discipline
3) gym/fitness culture is still very gatekept and intimidating

if a woman wants to sign up for a thirty minute class where she knows where she's going, how long she'll be there, what the environment is going to be like, and then bounce around for exercise, man, let her fucking cook and go back to hogging twelve machines at once for your three hour crossfit routine before you go home to eat unseasoned chicken and rice and suffocate in your own protein shake farts

[erikakaiser]

"fruity little sadist" is my favourite archetype

I refuse to do the invasion mission where you kill him, he is my special boy and I keep him safe in my pocket

(I should wash that pocket)