Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

I decided late last year that I was going to learn to drive and get my licence before my 40th birthday.

And, as of yesterday, I am [provisionally] licensed to drive in Victoria!

Frankly I feel like I have pulled some sort of scam -- not quite thirty hours of practice, yet I can legally drive a car without supervision. On roads. With other cars.

On the other hand, the tester said my driving was perfect aside from needing to check the rear and side mirrors more, and when I made a mistake, I corrected smoothly and safely, without panicking or breaking the law. And I really should have done this years ago, if only so as to enjoy a brief period where I could do a head check without neck pain.

I would quite like to own a car, but the whole car market is a complete mess right now, thanks to covid -- used cars are going for almost as much as they cost new, and new cars can take months or even years to arrive. (And I am not buying a new car as my first!) Plus, I particularly want a hybrid, so as to ameliorate the cost of petrol -- and I had some lessons in a 2018 Prius, which was amazing -- so that reduces the range I'm looking at. I'm sticking to my plan of paying off my credit card and then saving, and maybe in a couple of years prices will be back to normal and I can get a modest loan.

In the meantime, there is my flatmate's Beetle (and I owe her SO MUCH for all the supervising she has done, for not murdering me every time I try to park, and for her patience as I figured out the art and science of the speed bump), and the many hours of designated driver karma I am due to repay.

Real life is very straightforward:

• work
• write
• watch TV and quilt
• listen to podcasts
• read
• sleep

The sleeping is getting a bit out of hand, but I think that's related to some health issues I'm having examined next week.

I've changed it up by joining my local YMCA (*does the dance*), which has classes and a little gym, and seems to attract patrons of a wide range of ages and body types. Also the local roller derby team trains there, which is terribly cool but also makes me regret (again) that my assorted ankle and foot injuries mean that rollerskating is the very worst sport I could possibly pursue.

General TV stuff

Probably the best thing I've seen recently is Killing Eve, but I also loved season 2 of GLOW, which gave more time to the supporting characters while also flipping the dynamic of season 1 by making Debbie the less likeable of the protagonists. Downright hateable, in fact, but I could also still sympathise with her. That's a really hard line to walk, so, nice job all around, team.

I'm currently watching the four episodes of Major Crimes that guest starred Jayne Brook. It's ... well, it's the penultimate storyline of a six season procedural, but it's a procedural, so I feel like I know everything important about the regular characters already.

Mary McDonnell has had a hell of a lot of work done on her face, which is a valid choice and all, but distracting because I know what she used to look like. And it's weird when she's standing next to Brook, who is nearly ten years younger but looks much older and has a full range of movement in her forehead.

(Also, the text and subtext around gender, sex and assault are quite at odds, and feel extremely dated. Which is troubling, because it aired in late 2017 and is a not at all subtle #metoo story.)

I realised halfway through the first episode of this arc that the Major Crimes showrunner is the new guy in charge of Discovery -- which, if nothing else, maybe increases our chances of getting a McDonnell guest appearance. But that seems as good a way as any to segue into... Discovery at SDCC!

( Spoilers for season 2, I guess )

My property manager has conducted investigations and worked out that the man who inspected my flat last month was not a random weirdo, but The New Guy In The Office. Needless to say, he will be Spoken To.

Unfortunately, The New Guy lost all the pictures he took during the inspection, so they have asked very nicely if they can do a new one. I have graciously assented, figuring that this is rather irregular under the terms of the Residential Tenancies Act, and with luck I'll be able to leverage their mistake into some kind of handy concession -- permission to put up a shelf in the bathroom, maybe. Although right now, I could also go for one of those fancy Japanese toilet seats with a butt warmer.

It is, you see, Quite Cold. So cold that cycling to work this morning triggered asthma I didn't even know I had -- at least, I was wheezing all day until I bought and took some Ventolin.

And last night, tragedy of tragedies, my heater died. It was rather expensive, but also not worth having repaired -- it's that awkward between-place. So I'm tossing up whether to replace it straight away with a rather cheap one, or whether to wait a couple of weeks and ask Dad to buy me a fancy new one for my birthday. But $200 is a lot to spend on a heater, so I don't know.

So what have you been up to? / Major life changes? Same old same old?

Oh, you know, work, sleep, watch TV, write.

I'm trying to get fitter and a bit healthier, on account of all the heart disease and DIABEETUS in my mother's family. To that end, I've invested in a Fitbit One, a bike pump and a key to the locked bike cages at the station three kilometres away.  It's going well!  I seem to have more energy, and I cracked 16km/hr on my bike last night. (Admittedly by taking a different route, one with fewer stop lights and more trucks, but, you know.)

I can't remember if I blogged about it here, but in April I moved out of my last sharehouse and into a tiny flat in the inner west.  It is DELIGHTFUL, except that it's always my turn to clean, and for reasons I guess I'll discuss below, I did no cleaning at all last week, and have regretted it ever since.  I'm basically procrastinating right now, before I start washing ALL THE DISHES.  (Literally.  All the dishes I own.)

ETA: I have washed all the dishes.

What fandom are you in/do you spend most of your time in?

Legend of Korra!  Specifically the Lincentric part, because cranky middle-aged superheroines are love, and I still adore the complexity of the Beifong family's dysfunctions and the impact they had on Republic City.  

Where do you hang out online?

Twitter, Tumblr, and I'm still blogging about social justice, pop culture and auscore with yiduiqie  at No Award.

What are you reading?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

I started The Dark Forest, the second book in Li Cixin's Three-Body Problem trilogy, but the library's ePub is super buggy -- turning pages takes 15 seconds, and it loses my place every time I put my Kobo to sleep.

I meant to try it on my iPad, but accidentally started reading The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett instead.  Only a million years after everyone I knew in Harry Potter fandom was obsessed with Dunnett's books, I'm finally reading them myself.  They are quite hard work!  Rewarding, but also a challenge, especially if you're an instinctive speed reader like me.  I really have to force myself to slow down and find the plot hidden in the dense prose. 

Oh yeah, and I'm also reading A City Lost And Found: Whelan the Wrecker's Melbourne, which is a combination of urban archaeology, local history and a working class-eye view of the twentieth century.

So, you know, just a few things. 

What are you watching?

I've been watching The X-Files!  I'm into season 9, and ... look, I knew the last few seasons had a bad rep, but there was a point back in season 4 when I really looked forward to Mulder leaving.  

I have regrets.

But I am determined to finish the damn series, and I really like Doggett, and Reyes has a lot of promise, although she feels like a much more nebulous character than any of the others.  And I liked the bit in the season 8 finale where Skinner shot Krycek in the head. 

What are you making?

So the reason I cleaned nothing last weekend is because I needed to finish revising the novel I wrote and submit it for the Ampersand Prize.

It is a middle-grade contemporary boarding school novel, which I started back in 2012 and kept having to put down because I was busy with other projects.  I finished it a few months ago, knowing that it needed heavy revisions, and when I found out that the Ampersand Prize existed, I realised that I absolutely had to enter it. 

You see, my original pitch to myself with this novel was "Malory Towers with a social media policy", only as it turns out, the school is co-ed and social media isn't really a factor in the story at all.  And the Ampersand Prize is run by Hardie Grant Egmont, which publishes the Enid Blyton school stories that inspired me. This could work against me, but I figured that made it worth a shot. 

Anyway, it was finished last week, and while I don't expect to win, long-listed titles often get editorial notes, which I would value a lot.  I'm trying not to think about it too much until it's all over, though.

Now I'm tossing up three ideas for my next project, trying to decide which to write next.  All require research, and I plan to use NaNo as a time to do a very rough first draft/outline/getting to know the story and figure out what it wants to be type of thing.  

Since I'm equally excited about all three projects, I'm thinking that I'll go with the one that has the most international and commercial potential -- I guess I'll talk about it in more detail in a locked entry -- but it's hard to choose. 

What are you squeeing about today?

I'm honestly pretty excited that the bathroom is clean. 

(Signs you may in fact be a grown up...)

If you could rope old fandom friends into a new fandom, it would be...

violetisblue has taken out a restraining order to make me stop recommending the Avatarverse to her. 

I should really watch/read/dive into _______ and then come talk to you about it!

This was a recurring theme at Continuum, and I'm speaking to the choir a bit here, everyone should read The Steerswoman and sequels by Rosemary Kirstein.  

What else is on your mind?

Why do I have so many surfaces that require dusting?

1.  I bought 8gb of RAM and installed them in my laptop!  This is pretty exciting, since first I had to work out what kind of RAM I needed, and how much my laptop could take, and then I had to leave the house and buy a new Phillips head screwdriver.  And then came the really hard bit, ie, getting a tight screw loose, and then applying the full force of my strength (derisive laughter) to getting the memory into the second slot.  (Turns out that close enough isn't good enough.  More like, "close enough and your laptop tries to boot up but just gives you a black screen and then you panic for a bit".)

This is exciting!  More for me than for the people who just followed my liveblogging of the RAM adventure on Twitter, but I did something technical and didn't stuff it up!

And now my laptop is faster than when it was new, and I can actually use it without scheduling extended breaks for tea whenever I want to open a new program or save a file!  Which means that, if I find myself in the middle of a big writing project by the time my North America trip comes around, and I hope to be, taking the laptop is a viable option instead of the equivalent of hauling a brick across an ocean.  (I was also considering getting a keyboard for the iPad, which is still a possibility, but ... well, the truth is, I paid so little for this laptop that it cost less than some iPad keyboards.) 

2.  More expensively, but with less technology, I have bought plane tickets!  I'm flying United from Melbourne to Toronto (via Sydney and LAX), then Air Canada from Toronto to New York, and, eventually, United again from Chicago to Melbourne. 

I wound up deciding against Korean Air because, much as they're an amazing airline and it would have been more comfortable, it added about 20 hours to my trip.  United seems like the McDonalds of airlines, but it's a much faster flight.  Really, the only thing they lack that I would have really liked was in-seat USB plugs.  And my Kobo can manage, like, a week of constant use before it needs recharching, so between that, my iDevices and possibly my laptop, I guess I'll be okay for entertainment. 

("Liz, just bring a notebook and a pen and use them to write," you say.  Ah, but pens never work properly on planes!  I presume it's a side-effect of the air pressure.  And I'm really ... fussy about my writing implements.  Which reminds me, I really need a new brush pen...)

Now I have five months to sort out all the other things I'll need -- travel insurance, my ESTA waiver for the United States, possibly a new suitcase that isn't falling apart, a proper winter coat.  (Usually I use a very light wool coat, since my limited time spent out of doors in winter usually involves very brisk walking.  But then rj_anderson said, re Ontario, "There probably won't be much snow," and Chicago is supposed to be very cold in November.  I don't know about Boston and New York, but it's better to be safe than sorry, right?  What do northern hemisphere types wear in late autumn?!

3.  I baked bread!  Which I've never done before, but I worked in bakeries for years, and most of the bakers were idiots, so I figured how hard could it be?

And it was very nice bread!  Mostly.  I replaced the water with boiled wine, because what's the point of doing something complicated for the first time if you can't make it even harder?  So it came out with a lovely purple colour and a pleasant aftertaste. 

Of course, it would have helped if it had been cooked through.  So there's a lesson for the future:  the "tap and if it sounds hollow it's done" trick isn't necessarily accurate.  I served it up at our Game of Thrones finale party, and we sort of ate around the doughy bits. 

I briefly contemplated making another loaf for the Mad Men finale party, but really, the most appropriate food for that is nothing, just and endless sea of scotch and kosher wine. 

It does turn out, unfortunately, that kneading dough is bad for arthritic hands.  Maybe more practice would make them stronger?  Or maybe I shouuld invest in a bread maker?  But that feels like cheating.  I mean, what's the point in making bread if you haven't poured your own sweat and tears (and nail polish and a stray hair) into it?

Doctor Who: Blue Box Detective Agency: Experienced specialists in the uncanny, unearthly and downright peculiar.  Reasonable rates.  Extra charges apply for slime.  ( Sarah Jane, Martha, Rose & Romana, for all your paranormal investigative needs. )

Meanwhile, back in the House o'Squid: ( This really happened. Which should come as a surprise to no one who actually knows us. )

I keep dreaming about being nibbled to death by fictional theologians, and Ordol has really sharp teeth.  Even more worryingly, this morning I woke up with a fresh, slightly infected scratch on my hand that I certainly didn't have last night. 

This is probably my subconscious's way of telling me to stop sitting up late re-reading the Chalion novels.  (Have I ever shared my Holy Family = Vorkosigans Theory?)  And perhaps I should go on a Hidden Sharp Objects Hunt, since I had an identical scratch on my tummy last week.

On an even more worrying note, I'm really enjoying my Organisational Policy class.  Like, really enjoying it.  I read a policy on the use of camera phones in public spaces, and had fun.