fred_mouse

I've done my approximately-annual tidy up of dreamwidth subscriptions. I've stopped following a set of blogs that haven't updated in ~2 years, left roughly half the communities I was in, and changed a few other details. The main exceptions on keeping people who don't post are people who comment often enough that I remember; at least one of those I've left their access but unsubscribed. The other exception is people who I'm very much hoping will turn up again one day (and one who, sadly, will never be back, but whose name makes me smile to see it in the list).

If, as happens with this, I've managed to remove your access and you are someone who does actually want to see the occasional locked post, please comment on this post. I'll put a locked post up shortly; it will read 'test' or some equally inane thing.

hopefully this storygraph link goes to the public option, not the for me specifically option.

I'm choosing to not look at what was planned; I've already posted about my 5 star reads and some other thinking. This is me just reading through and having feelings.

• The first (We Were Dreamers, Simu Liu, biography) and last (The House That Horror Built, Christina Henry, horror) sure are an interesting juxtaposition
• The 'mood' graph seems weird and I wish it wasn't there
• Going back to study had a noticeable effect on how much I was reading, which is not a surprise
• I hate the way that storygraph does 'genre' because my top five are fantasy, science fiction, short stories, LGBTQIA+, and horror, only three of which I consider to be genres.
• 15 days per book as an average just shows how much my reading is an overlapping thing.
• 'top authors' - Katherine MacLean was 4 (that can't be right, there were 8 short stories, I must not have tracked them all), Premee Mohammed (3 stories, hmm, something odd there as well), and Dave Warner (3 books, that's a trilogy)
• average rating 3.75 - probably because the DNF/0 don't get counted; I gave 11 2 star ratings, which seems more than I would have expected. Most frequent rating of 4 is also higher than I would have expected.
• somehow there were 52 'new to me' authors, which is interesting because I felt like I was sticking to comfortable stuff.
• DNF - 22 books; not sure if that feels high
• read 24 of my books - I bet that this is an undercount, because I don't always mark books as owned, particularly if I only have them as ebook.
• it is weird that my highest rated reads tend to be non-fiction, because I read so little of it

I clicked through to the more detail

• most commonly applied tag is 'borrowed', applied to 21 books. 21 borrowed + 24 owned =/= the number read
• I need to update the tags on some, because they don't have the -read suffix added

I stalled out last year on the drawing practice, because I tidied up my sketchbook and pencils, and it was so frustrating not to be able to find them that I abandoned the project. But I was in OfficeWorks the other day, and bought myself a $5 pack of 12 sketching pencils and a $2 tiny shitty sketchbook.

Two days ago, I attempted to draw something from my screen, and was too sore/tired/grumpy, and gave up after about three lines. Today, I realised that the worst part of drawing is working out where to start. So! I have a simplified goal. Attempt to draw my hand at least once a week. Today's effort was about 5 minutes worth, I got the thumb, some of the palm, and two of the fingers before running out of oomph. I've worked out that I'd rather do a stack of detail in one place than try and sketch the whole shape before getting started. And it wasn't fun, but it wasn't awful.

Medical details ahead.

( possibly TMI )

I said to myself earlier today 'last year's goal setting wasn't fabulous, let's not do that this year. ... I haven't quite managed to make myself believe that zero goals is the right number. Unlike last year where I allowed multiple goals for many topics, and separated them out, I'm going to allow myself 10 minutes (and yes, I've set a timer) to put 10-12 believable goals

1. Read >25 non-uni books. This one is going to be tricky to track because I put all the books I read into Storygraph; I'm going to have to manually count. (book: published physically as a single; short stories don't count)
2. Do my milestone 2 - this is a university requirement at about the 18 month mark; because of the way my school does things my choices are October (early) or February 2027 (late). Thus, I am aiming for the October one with the understanding that it is a large ask.
3. Eldest's quilt - at this point I would be happy with the quilt top being done
4. Continue playing with at least one of the community orchestras
5. Go to at least one of the Sunday morning sessions I have been invited to.
6. Spend time with friends and family. Reach out to friends I haven't seen in a while. Spend time with K&D, given they are going to be in the state and this will be the first opportunity I've had to actually explore what it means to be siblings.

... my time is not up, but I'm finding I don't want to put more. There is a reading, there is a uni, there is a music. There is a craft, and it is very specific, but I'm going to have to stop with the being obsessive. Do I think I'll stay on track with this? No. But also, I'm not going to attempt to track it through the year; it is a snapshot of what I thought I wanted.

I'm half-arsing this. I'm finishing the year sore, fatigued, and not nearly as grumpy as I could be (given that this was going to be a study day, and I've declared that nope, it is a annual leave day, and now I'm working through a set of tiny low priority tasks).

At the beginning of the year, I set some goals. With going back to study, I didn't make as many of them as I'd like, and I stopped tracking them mid year.

• work - I set one goal - find work. I'm calling what I'm doing 'work', success
• craft - I set seven goals. I completed two of the 'finish this'. I attempted to start Middlest's quilt. There are no incomplete projects on the green couch because we cleared the couch. I am not looking at the red couch. Eldest's quilt is not done. I started a deal with UFOs project, but abandoned. Excellent progress, considering.
• reading - I set four goals. I bailed on the Hugo reading, and my but that was the right choice. I have met my books but not my pages goals; mostly because I started tracking online short fiction. I wanted to progress the various reading challenges on Storygraph; I'm intending to do a separate post on that. Good progress.
• house - I set 6 goals. The ramp and pergola required me to contact people; this did not happen. I made progress on the towel rail for the kids bathroom. The library is more useable, as is the craft room. Acceptable progress.
• music - I set 7 goals. I kept playing with Fledge. The rest fell by the wayside. I've certainly played some of the grade 5 descant pieces, but I've really struggled with the energy to play anything for more than five minutes. Bad match between goals and reality
• learning - I set three goals; I attempted nothing. Oops.
• family - I set no goals. Youngest moved home. Middlest moved out. Middlest got married. Middlest's partners bought a house that they will all be moving in with. I made an effort to spend time with all the local family. maharetr and I now have a very low key text based weekly catchup that provides us both with executive function; I have made attempts at having coffee with people Just Because (most recently, ariaflame, chaosmanor, maharetr). Despite no goals, I'm happy with the achievement.
• social - I set a half arsed goal about catching up with friends. I have been attempting to say yes to social things, although often falling in a heap. I have, however, caught up with a number of people I don't see often enough, not all of that at funerals.
• physical exercise and health - I set four goals. I achieved none. Park runs were doing fine right up to the point that something went wrong and then I couldn't deal. My sleep worsened, got better, worsened, and now I'm back to trying to pull it back before midnight again. Oh! I kind of did the walks in Perth - I didn't do one of the book, but we did find a wheelchair accessible one to do a couple of months back, which wa chaosmanor, maharetr, artisanat, and I.
• organisation - I have five goals, but the first one is ???, so I suspect a typo. All four real ones have been progressed but are all a long way from done. This is a disappointment, but I forgot I'd set them.
• decluttering - I set four goals. I achieved (mostly) one, successfully rehoming a significant portion of the yarn and fabric I wanted to.
• writing - I set 6 goals. I have mostly kept up the offline journal/morning pages; I wrote fewer blog posts here and none at anna_reads_science and not as many as I wanted at Tumblr. My two coding projects languished. I am disappointed, but unsurprised.
• garden - I set five goals and one stretch. The bird netting came off the grapes, but I can't claim that one. Some of the extra pot plants found homes. The rest required energy, motivation, and remembering, and these did not happen.

Overall - I achieved some things, and having a list was useful, at least while I remembered it was there. I started writing a new list mid-year, and never quite got off the ground. I struggle to work out how to track these things. I continue to not put energy into skills I value, not least because they take energy and focus, and it has been a difficult year for that.

(I was going to write about what I'm hoping for 2026, but that will be later, as Out Of Oomph)

A fortnight or so ago, james_davis_nicoll posted 200 Significant Science Fiction Books by Women, 1984–2001, by David G. Hartwell. I had an interesting time skimming it, and then decided that I own a lot of those books and either haven't read them, or read them long enough ago that I don't remember enough of them.

So! I decided to try and read as many of them as possible. And because I like to make life easier for Future Me, I turned it into a StoryGraph Challenge. This challenge has no time limits, and welcomes all comers. I'd dearly like to have other people join the challenge, and read a stack of fascinating books, some by authors who should be better remembered than they are (Bujold, for one, is actually well remembered. Tess Williams, on the other hand, isn't).

The damn things continue to overlap

• surgeon appointment: nothing new, but the margins on what was removed aren't big enough, back in surgery - that's my Friday.
• the next step in the candidacy paperwork was in fact not my responsibility, and I now have an email to say I've passed that hurdle (here it is called 'Milestone 1').
• Last Monday rehearsal of the year was this week; I tried bowing for one line of very long/slow notes and ow, nope, not yet. Was, however, good support for the other viola player, including singing some of the bits where the viola has the melody. We had a new violin player! I hope they come back, they seemed to be having fun.
• Today was my last day on campus for the year. I will be working some over the shutdown, because I'm supposed to have my ethics drafted by mid January, and I still don't know what I don't know. Treated myself to curry and a fizzy drink for lunch.
• Finished Building a second brain (Tiago Forte), which I've gained some useful ideas from. Recommended if you are needing a way to organise the information that is coming in to your life; not elsewise.
• Youngest went bouldering with co-workers on Monday, and is learning yet again about not relying on hyperextended elbows to do the work (their grip strength isn't, and their forearms hurt "weirdly")
• have woken up twice this week having done Something Stupid in my sleep. Monday it was the right hip not quite in the right place (went back in during rehearsal, I staggered in looking awful, I gather) and today it is something with the muscles of the right shoulder and halfway down the back -- I could barely move the shoulder this morning, and it has settled down to 'about half the time one or more muscles are spasming'.

• surgical recovery continues apace. The incision has mostly healed, although the knot of dissolving stitches at one end got caught when I was trying to clean it and pulled it slightly open, so I've now cut off the knot, put a fancy steri-strip over it to hold it together, and a little circular sticking plaster over that. Internals still noticeably sore, externals are itchy; have been putting 'scar therapy gel' on which seems to help (it was in the cupboard; I do not know what any of the ingredients are). I see the surgeon on Tuesday for follow up.
• reviewers comments for my candidacy proposal are in (received late on Friday). I'm not actually sure what the next step is -- I'll work it out tomorrow. I think it said 'no edits' which is a surprise, given that I have been reading and annotating weekly since submitting, and there are a lot of 'this could be clearer' and 'what did you mean here?' notes. Also, I found another answer to one of the reviewers questions from the presentation about why books and not films/tv, which is that I'm hoping to get a wider range of cultural influences (and I have a paper from Italy in which almost all of the TV/movies that the kids reported was from the USA, which very much supports my 'this would be an issue' argument)
• there was an HDR and supervisors lunch run by the school I'm in on Monday. This was very interesting and I met a lot of people. Including one who I was unsurprised to discover is an acquaintance of Youngest. Very queer (not very surprising) and neurodiverse (should not have been surprising) bunch that I met.
• weather has been Warm. To the point that artisanat has been volunteering to put the air-con on.
• There have been some changes to the mix of South Asian grocers on High Road. One of the two north of Bunnings has gone (and the one still there no longer stocks palak paneer in their shelf-stable preprepared meals; not the regular nor the tofu/vegan option. They do, however, still have some vegan options). There is a new one that is further south than the ones I was aware of -- nearly to where the petrol station is. To the point that it is still so new that not all the shelves are stocked; we couldn't find the box meals there at all, but we had to rush because we ran out of time. Thus there are still three that I'm aware of.
• Monday's rehearsal I went with the intention to play pizzicato, which was mostly fine, but I got there to discover the C string broken (spare was at home) so had to transpose some of the work up an octave, which ah, that needs practice. As does one of the sections we hadn't got to that I'd failed to realise has a lot of fast notes.
• craft has stalled
• reading - one of these week's I'll get around to doing another reading post. Over on the Book Club of Habitica Discord I've joined the TBR Bingo challenge for Dec/Jan and set myself a bingo card of 16 books from my 'paused' list. So far, I've finished 1, which is progress but not as fast as I want.

This covers August through beginning of November

At least one of the links was from coth; most I have no idea - some of them have been in my 'read later' for a very long time. There were also stories from All of Tor.com’s Original Short Fiction Published in 2022, which I'm guessing I've started working through before, but didn't remember what I'd read previously (18 short stories, 13 novelettes, 1 translation) (and didn't finish this time either)

Loved it!

• Smoke and Sweetness by Zhui Ning Chang, from Jan 2025 - gentle, sweet, slice of life with touches of whimsy and sadness, set in a floristry
• Fruiting Bodies - Kemi Ashing-Giwa, from Jan 2022 - very much body horror, in a far future on a different planet. Not quite zombies.
• The Chronologist by Ian R MacLeod, from Feb 2022 - atmosphere and character and kind of an apocalypse
• The Last Truth by Anamaria Curtis, from Feb 2022 - bittersweet, about how how losing oneself a memory at a time leaves nothing behind.

Not bad

• Bone by Karl Gallagher, from May 2025 - heavy on the science, clunky on the rest.
• If a Digitized Tree Falls by Ken Liu and Caroline M. Yoachim, from Sept 2025 (novelette) - snatches through time, as the ways in which the world is modelled by digital tech changes, and AI assistants evolved. I found myself distracted and unmotivated to finish, although it is beautifully written
• Model Collapse by Matthew Kressel, from Oct 2025 - very clever body horror about the AI takeover.

Not for me

• Saving the Gleeful Horse - K J Bishop, from March 2010. - creepy. But I managed to get distracted part way through, and then had to come back to finish it.
• Synthetic Perennial by Vivianni Glass, from Feb 2022 - normally I like myself some surreal / magic realism details, but I just found this one disorienting. Not for those with medical trauma.
• Hush by Mary Anne Mohanraj, from March 2022 - I get what this one is saying, but it is just a tad too real w.r.t fascism and racist supremacy. Unreliable narrator who thinks they are one of the good guys didn't help.
• The Long View by Susan Palwick, from April 2022 - this went too close to farce for me. Seemed to be both attempting to be Meaningful and Funny.

DNF

• Victory Citrus Is Sweet by Thoriay Dyer, from Sept 2022 - couldn't deal with the narrative voice
• Quandary Aminu vs The Butterfly Man by Rich Larson - sometimes I'm in the mood for gritty noir cyberpunk, and today is not it.
• The Sisters of Saint Nicola of The Almost Perpetual Motion vs the Lurch by Garth Nix, from July 2022 - DNF - While I like Nix's novels, I often bounce from their short fiction, and this was no exception