therapeutic thump

Hi, everybody! It's been ages, hasn't it? I've had kind of a lot going on. Too much to explain, so let me just sum up . . .

Most of my time and energy this year have been going toward my brother's wedding, which is in India in a few months; it's been causing so many problems and there's so much that needs sorting out and everything is happening third-hand and I am really ready for all of this to be over.

Partly to distract myself and partly because it's what I would do anyway, I've been reading and writing and watching a lot of TV and movies. Books by Ada Palmer and N. K. Jemisin (all highly recommended), a book called No Visible Bruises (about domestic violence - very hard to read but full of ideas I hadn't heard before), the latest Jackson Brodie mystery by Kate Atkinson, and more I'm not remembering right now.

I rewatched s1 of Veronica Mars when the new season dropped, and I have lots of thoughts about all of it. I just finished The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, which was gorgeous, and am planning on curling up with my new Rocketman DVD later this evening before I watch Nadal's match.

I signed up for as many fic challenges as I could handle, since the timing of this wedding makes my participation in Yuletide a little iffy. I've written a Some Like It Hot fic for Just Married (Jerry+Sugar, Jerry+Joe, Jerry/Osgood, Sugar/Joe), an Ant-Man fic for Rare Male Slash (Scott Lang/Jimmy Woo, Scott+Luis, Scott+Cassie), a fic in L. M. Montgomery's Blue Castle (Valancy/Barney) for HetSwap, a big and unexpected one-small-change AU of Pride and Prejudice for Not Prime Time, a Harry/Merlin fic for Kingsman Reverse Bang, an Eggsy+Roxy fic for Fandom Trumps Hate, and one Merlin/Roxy fic and another Harry/Merlin fic for Smut Swap. I've also been working on a very big and sprawly Kingsman AU fic that I hoped to have done by now, but no such luck.

And a little personal news to round off this post with! I quit my terrible job (my last day is this coming Friday and then I NEVER HAVE TO SEE MY BOSS AGAIN!!!) and am starting a new one the Monday after! It's the first time I sought a new job while still having an old job, and it's a much less stressful way of job-hunting, though it is admittedly still terrible. And I just got back from my last scheduled vacation from Old Job, which was a week in the Netherlands!
I went because my friend R has been living in the Netherlands for over 15 years and we've never gotten it together to schedule a visit. R just recently married his husband M. K, another friend I grew up with, decided to join me in visiting R, and we did manage to coordinate our flights despite living on opposite sides of the country. One thing I wasn't really prepared for was how small the Netherlands is - R lives in the Hague, and the local public transportation (buses and trams) extends to Rotterdam and Delft, and the train to Amsterdam is less than 45 minutes. So K and I camped out in R&M's lovely house.
First thing you need to know: there are shutters everywhere. Plus some of the buildings (in Amsterdam particularly) lean alarmingly. There are lots of flowers in unexpected places. There's also a lot of art. These feet are made of sand. And this poem, according to R, who obligingly translated on the fly for me, is about mussels. No idea what it's doing on a random wall in Middelburg.
The Netherlands is also really big on public works: dams, windmills, canals, etc. A few illustrations: Apparently one of the modern windmills is as effective as 17 of the old bad boys, which is pretty impressive.

And now for some art and stuff that I just liked. Rembrandt's bed: A gravedigger's gravestone: An Escher (hometown hero) that I'd never seen before: And this very nearly made up for the fact that Rembrandt's The Night Watch was covered by machinery when I went to see it:

So that's it for me - how are you all doing?