the deep moans round with many voices

Apropos of nothing in particular!

Audible is running a bunch of random promotions at the moment (because life in the time of coronavirus is weird for everyone, including corporations), one of which is free downloads of some meditation samplers. It is hard to argue with free, so I flicked through and downloaded the three that looked like they might not be completely teeth-grating. (Note: I find a lot of guided meditation impossible to listen to because of unspoken assumptions on the part of the person doing the speaking/guiding. There's a certain... smugness, maybe? that seeps through around the edges. I don't want someone to sell me on a lifestyle. I just want a technician to help me turn my brain off.)

So I tried them. And. Well. Um.

I mean, the Cape Cod beach soundscape wasn't horrible or anything! It was just incredibly distracting, which is not helpful for calming me down or helping me go to sleep. I think that's because it's so obviously not what my local environment is doing. About the only time it might be useful is while I'm writing, and if I'm writing I can just find a long Youtube nature video or something.

The second was a crystal bowl breathing meditation which literally set my teeth on edge. The closest I can come to "why" is that the bowl the speaker identified as the lower note had such an intense high overtone that it practically drowned out the low note, and the low and high pitches rubbing against each other was distressing for some reason.

The third was a "sound bath" that, I swear by all the gods that anyone ever held holy, activated my fight or flight response. I had to go breathe heavily in the bathroom and it took me over an hour of comfort reading before I was able to even contemplate trying to fall asleep again.

In conclusion, I am staying FAR away from any meditation involving crystal bowls or sustained non-melodic tones. Whatever nice things they may do to other people's nervous systems, they play merry hell with mine.

1. Not the IRS 11am-noon. Wherein I finished one return and uploaded it for the client to approve or return with comments, and called a couple other clients to leave messages. I also mostly cleared out my little cubby in the back room since I currently only have one more scheduled shift before April 15 and whatever happens after than, it will be at the valley office rather than my office.

2. Phone call with Susan at 1pm. :D

3. Repaired one pair of pants and got 3/4 of the way through repairing a second pair. I intend to finish up this evening.

4. A few days ago I finished one Great Courses series -- The Terror of History: Mystics, Heretics, and Witches in the Western Tradition by Prof. Teofilo F. Ruiz (which is pretty cool, though I am a little 'eh' about some of his analysis of the history and purpose of religion in general (though it fits pretty well with Christianity and he does treat Judaism separately) and also I am firmly of the belief that all historical analysis can be improved by NOT drawing on Freud or Jung) -- and have moved on to How the Earth Works by Prof. Michael E. Wysession. I listened to several lectures today while doing various household tasks and walking or driving to various places.

5. Took my daily walk to Cascadilla Creek and back so I wouldn't start climbing the walls.

6. Made almond cake! I halved the cake recipe and loosely two-thirded the icing, and baked the cake in a 9 x 13 pan so it's a little thicker than the original intent (even with the halved amounts), but it smells fine and passed the toothpick test, so I think it came out all right. It's cooling on a rack now and I will have a piece or two for dessert.

I have not written anything yet today, but I may or may not get on that after I finish repairing my pants. *wry*

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in February 2020. Click on the cuts for summaries and reactions. I reserve the right to spoil all hell out of any book if spoilery bits are what I feel like talking about.

Six of Crows, by Leigh Bardugo
-----( thoughts )

Crooked Kingdom, by Leigh Bardugo
-----( thoughts )

The Clockwork Boys, by T. Kingfisher
-----( thoughts )

The Wonder Engine, by T. Kingfisher
-----( thoughts )

Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo
-----( thoughts )

Siege and Storm, by Leigh Bardugo
-----( thoughts )

Ruin and Rising, by Leigh Bardugo
-----( thoughts )

---------------

And now I think I shall make some lunch.

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in January 2020. Click on the cuts for summaries and reactions. I reserve the right to spoil all hell out of any book if spoilery bits are what I feel like talking about.

Minor Mage, by T. Kingfisher
-----( thoughts )

The Seventh Bride, by T. Kingfisher
-----( thoughts )

Sovereign, by C. J. Sansom
-----( thoughts )

---------------

And now I will attempt to do useful things for an hour and a half before I have to leave for work. *wry*

Things done since 2:30pm:

1. Worked 4-8pm at Not the IRS. I had my first tax client today! We couldn't finish because they were missing two pieces of information, but it's the kind of thing where somebody else just has to plug two numbers in and then run the signatures, so they're coming back on their Thursday lunch break with those numbers and one of my coworkers will get everything signed and paid.

2. Continued listening to The Magnus Archives. I have finished episode 101: "Another Twist," and continue to enjoy the podcast a lot. :D

3. Continued listening to my current Great Courses series, which continues to annoy me but not quite enough to call it a day and move on to something else. *hands* I have decided to treat it as an unreliable introductory survey course, which is basically what it is.

Thus far the lecturer has made howling genealogical errors for both the Medicis and the royal family of Castille-Aragon, has fucked up the timeline of the Portuguese voyages of exploration around Africa to India, and has also repeated negative rumors about the Borgias as if they were proven fact. (Which, like, I am not a Borgia fan? But there is a difference between saying, "There were widely believed stories that the Borgias did such-and-such shocking, immoral things," and saying, flat-out, "The Borgias totally did these shocking, immoral things," in the same tone as reporting clear facts like who was king of France in a certain year.) I also have serious arguments with his take on Columbus's voyages and Cortez's conquest of Mexico, though that's more an interpretation thing than an errors-of-fact thing. On the other hand, this is one of the first times I've heard someone devote time and attention to the growth of the popular piety movement in the late Middle Ages/Renaissance, so that's worth something.

4. Wrote ~525 words of the bridge-centric Narnia fic. I think I have figured out what the tax record stuff is doing there -- the theme is about building Narnia back into a functional and unified country in the years after PC (possibly also after VDT? I am as yet unsure of the exact timeframe of this fic), so cracking down on old habits of tax evasion (and also using taxes for public works rather than just making Miraz rich and hiring ever-more soldiers) is related to my protagonist's obsession with creating functional bridges to improve transportation networks and logistics. Also, I have worked out a good reason for her to meet a local naiad, and a reason for that naiad to have an interest in human engineering. So. Progress!

(Also, as of yesterday I am no longer in the red on my getyourwordsout pledge of 75,000 words in 2020. \o/ I mean, ~205 words a day is not a particularly grueling writing pace, but I spent the first week of January writing literally no fiction, and most of the next week writing a grand total of 210 words over six whole days, so it's nice to prove to myself that I can still knock words out when I put in a little time and effort. Are these words aimed toward my planned Writing Projects To Complete in 2020? So far, mostly not. But some of them are, and any words are better than no words, you know?)

5. Bought some more groceries, including the zucchinis I was unable to buy yesterday because the store had run out of them. They were very nearly out again today, but I snapped up the last remnants -- they're quite small and some have weird marks on their skins (which is probably why no one else had bought them earlier), but they will roast just fine so I don't care.

6. Steamed broccoli for lunch tomorrow and Friday. Possibly dinner tomorrow as well? Or no, that will probably be taco salad.

7. Possibly I should mention that I washed all the dishes I used in my various cooking projects? I don't usually mention washing dishes, because that's not a task I have ever had trouble with. It doesn't eat spoons for me -- in fact, I find it meditative and a minor source of the "look, I have Done A Thing" satisfaction I get from creative endeavors. And I think because I know dishes aren't a problem for me, I don't get bothered if they stack up in my sink for a couple days -- I know I will get to them sooner or later, so there's no sense of building anxiety as the size of the task grows. It just means I get one long meditation session instead of two or three smaller ones spread over multiple days.

I have heard other people's dish-related issues, and I am really glad they're not something I personally share. Anyway, you can generally assume that I have eaten three meals, showered in the morning, gotten dressed, brushed my teeth twice a day, and flossed in the evening, even if I don't explicitly mention doing those tasks. I do put them on my to-do lists, but that's mostly to give myself some "freebies" so even on bad days I can feel like I'm still doing something, you know?

...

This has been a really good/productive week, actually. Suspiciously good. Now I'm suddenly waiting for the other shoe to drop. *headdesk*

...

Anyway, now I am off to bed, because I have to be up at 7:15am tomorrow instead of getting to sleep in until the luxuriously late hour of 9:00am. *wry*