lizbee | Too hot (hot damn!) (Reply)

Christmas Day was a scorcher, and then we had a brief run of days that were warm and humid, but not TOO warm or humid. (It helps that my flat, though tiny, has big windows and gets a breeze.)

Today, on the other hand, is tipped to reach 35 degrees, and it's grey and muggy. I'm sat at the table in my underwear, with my hair still dripping and the fan on high. At some point I'm going to decamp to the local shopping centre, grab a few extremely necessary things (a rashie for swimming and a new shower curtain, if you're curious) and maybe see a movie.

I realised a few weeks ago that unstructured days can be a bit of a depression trigger for me. Especially mornings -- I was waking up on Sundays, having run all the errands and done all the chores on Saturday, and finding myself unpleasantly aimless. And now I have a three-week break from work!

So I'm trying to build a routine where I do something every day -- get up, eat, shower, wash the dishes and vacuum, find a reason to get out of the house. Even if it's just to visit the local Pokestops. (Ideally this also won't involve spending huge amounts of money, because it's really hard to update my budget spreadsheet on the iPad.) And I've started doing daily yoga, following the Yoga with Adriene 30 Days thing on YouTube.

(I really rate Adriene -- she's funny, she provides useful alternatives for getting into challenging poses, and she hasn't used the word "toxins" once. I really like my regular yoga instructor, but I've sort of plateaued in her classes lately. Adriene's videos really stretch my core muscles.)

I keep feeling a bit guilty for not using my time off to write -- fic or original work -- but I don't seem to have the energy just yet. I'm trying to be kind to myself, since I'm also struggling to read books and make it through episodes of television without pausing to do other things -- I mean, clearly I'm tired and need a rest. I know what my next steps are with the two novels in progress (sigh, it's revision and research), and I have an idea for a Lin/Asami, but when I sit down to actually work on something, I just want to sleep.

I did make it through The Crown, which I mostly liked, except that the season's end, with the resolution of the Margaret/Townsend affair, gave Elizabeth less agency than she had in real life, and also took a speech away from Margaret, putting it in Townsend's mouth instead. It was extremely frustrating, when the series at its best was such an interesting look at the conundrum of having immense privilege but very little agency.

And the Doctor Who Christmas special was entertaining and forgettable, which is frankly ideal for that subgenre. It felt oddly like a companion to Paul Cornell's episode of Elementary, with a similar love for the inspirational and aspirational aspects of superhero comics.