the humble local freak

Ahh, it continues. I really need to book time off to get this bastarding dissertation sorted. I am so very tired of it and I need to actually write the buggering thing.

Also, why do I always forget how consistently manic Autumn becomes? It's like I have even less time than usual, and I don't often have much of that to start with! It's taken a few years but the house has I fully admit now became The Hovel Mark II, and I just can't seem to keep on top of it, not with studying and events and family illness/injuries...the weeks just merge into one another and somehow another one has occured with stuff just being piled onto the stuff from the week before...ffs

The new job is going okay I think...I have done a lot of stuff and am confident that I've done so in a competent manner, but it's still a bit weird. Part of my job is about going out to people and places and doing promotional stuff but for various reasons doing that is not terribly easy and I still feel a bit frozen about what I can do without asking permission first about. My boss is off for the next couple of days and whilst I have been working the acutal work-load is substantially less because I'm still new enough that people don't know to mither me and also because I'm meant to be using that time to be coming up with new and creative ideas and doing stuff....trouble is, I'm struggling for ideas without having my old pals to bounce ideas off.

Anyway. I just have to keep positive and keep motivated, which is a challenge that my natural eeyore-ness just has to suck it up and deal with.

I have had a lot of good and lovely things lately including friends' parties, meeting up with friends, the first Craft fair of the season with mum (jolly good) and fighting out of a reading slump and film slump at the same time. In the past fortnight I've watched A Star is Born (goood...but a trigger warning was really fucking needed) and The Belles of St Trinians (classic) and read With love from Boy, letters from Roald Dahl to his mother and By the Waters of Liverpool. Once I properly got in I sped through them, which is a nice change.

Been reading Harry Potter fic again, I've found some new fics that are promising or at least interesting but am depressed by the fact that the dross just keeps on. It might have changed somewhat, compared to the dross we used to get, but there's still so much of it, and although Ao3 is a fantastic repository, it sadly has not yet managed to develop a filter that removes the shite and keeps the good...in addition to that, a lot of the places to receive trustworthy recs of good, epic fic are long gone and I haven't yet found new places I can trust (yes, Reddit does but reddit is also I've found somewhat hit and miss). Anyway, I'm tracking some WIPS but occasionally falling down rabbit holes of 'Why...am I still reading this...' as I find myself about 10,000 words in and realise that I have no idea what is going on and that the author probably doesn't know either.

I didn't post this yesterday because I had a wonderful time visiting my friend for a New Year's Eve gathering. Mum and I have never done anything on New Year's Eve before and it was so very lovely we had a wonderful time and today we were straight out again to take Nanny to Mass and then spend the afternoon with her, walk the dogs and get drenched to our underthings in the showers. Lol. Auspicious start to the year, anyway!


In 2013 I read 61 books and watched 21 films

This is, for the first time since I started recording, an increase in books (last year I read only 40) but an absolutely enormous drop in films (last year I saw 44). There are many reasons for this- buying the house and family commitments that have kept me away from the television, and equally a need for the comfort and escapism that books provide much more thoroughly for me than films- you can't 'drift off' in the same way from a book because the story waits for you to return your eyes to it.

Books

Best Book I Read for the First Time in 2013 was:

I've read several marvellous books for the first time this year including The Opaque Garden by Anna C. Jones, Kalmari 1 by H. Stilwell and The Black Land by M. J. Wesolowski, but I think overall I shall have to say 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. I have wanted to read this book after hearing an article on BBC Radio 4 about the story about five years ago. Only trouble was? I couldn't remember the title or author, only that 'it was a street in london and about a bookshop' so I was in PAROXYMS OF GLEE when I found it in the library and realised that THIS WAS IT. I have re-read it again since then because it's just wonderful.

The Worst Book I Read in 2012 was:

I cant decide between The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe which was just MISERY MISERY ALL IS MISERY FOREVER OH HOW CAN IT GET ANY WORSE? OH LOOK IT JUST GOT WORSE. Or Black Cat by Martyn Bedford which had a good premise but was quite hard going and then just turned terrible by ( CUT FOR BIG SPOILER )


The Funniest Book was:

You Made Me Late Again! by Pam Ayers. It's Pam Ayers, she's awesome.

The most poignant/moving book:

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt I SOBBED INTO MY BATHWATER but it was very very beautiful.

Favourite Re-read/Old Favourite:
I did a lot of re-reading this year but probably The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens but I did also re-read for the millionth time On Writing by Steven King I owe such a lot to it.

Full List of my Books for 2013: http://listography.com/localfreak/books/books_of_2013

Films



The Best Film I Watched in 2012:

Not much to choose from this year but probably Iron Man 3. Sorry, Wolverine, I liked you in parts but the plugged 'bullet train' was really a bit dull.

The Worst Film I watched in 2012:

Hercules I never saw it when it came out, although our Prawn loved it. I see my childhod instincts were correct, it is SO BORING.

The Funniest Film Was: either Iron Man 3 or Paranorman. It's a bit weird to look back though because we watched the latter on the campsite for Nanny's 80th birthday party which, of course, is now the last time I saw the kid alive. :-( so it's hard to remember really,but I think we found it hilarious and I was going to lend it to him.

The Most Uplifting Film Was: The Muppet Christmas Carol

Favourite Re-Watch:

Same as above. I love Muppet Christmas Carol.

Full list of my films for 2013: http://listography.com/localfreak/movies/films_of_2013

I have being surrounding myself with books. One forgets, it seems at times, what a wonderful haven just the smell of an old book can be. I am transported to the trips to the library of my childhood, imagining myself devouring the entire section (sans the picture books, naturally, which even at five or six I felt had too few words) just like Roald Dahl's Matilda. I used to fight tears when Nanny would tell me we had to go because the library would be closing soon and I must choose my six to keep me for the week.

To many, I'll be talking nonsense, I always have books. Surely, I have never turned away from them? And I suppose not, never entirely, but I had somehow forgotten, apart from brief moments quite what a comfort books are. That they transport, redeem, hold and embrace. Thinking about them, breathing them in, makes the Wide World stop at the locked door and slink away for a time.

I have re-read Stephen King's On Writing since last Saturday. I clung to its weight in my bag even when I had no time to read more than a paragraph, the little library book has been near my hand, a hand-hold itself for dealing with the funeral and everything. I have also finished re-reading, for the millionth time The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, my childhood comfort blanket. I am grateful for both of these.

On Friday, which was my mother's birthday, she, I and still_lycoris went to Lady Heyes and whiled some happy time looking at the bizarre and the shiny and the tat in the shops, before whiling away some hours in the amazing, towering second hand bookshop. There was an offer- buy 2 get 1 free. Even up to a few months ago I would have resisted, decluttering after all buying when I already have books on my to-read pile and so on. But right now I need books, I crave them and concerns about hoarding and mess can go hang when it comes to reading more.

I have just finished House of Tribes by Garry Douglas Kilworth. It is a story about a mouse named Pedlar and his adventures from Hedgerow to meet the house mice and unite the tribes and factions within. I said at the time, after reading the blurb, it would either be rather good or dreadfully tedious. It was very good. The pace is lightning-quick and the book thoroughly un-put-down-able. I liked it very much and am very glad to have bought it. I have five more on the pile from that trip, plus two or three rather more weighty tomes in my to-read pile. I also have a longing to re-read some others: Harry and the Wrinklies, Rowan of Rin maybe even Swallows and Amazons or the entire Harry Potter series.

There just aren't enough hours in the day for all of the books. I am so very grateful for them all right now.

Absoultely done in this week, and it's only halfway through! Got home tonight to find a concerning letter from the council saying I owe them money, when I kind of have signed documentation from them previously stating I don't. I'm sure I'm right but it's just very worrisome. Mum is going to call them tomorrow for me as I'm in work and hopefully it can be all sorted out easily. I really don't fancy learning how to complain to the ombudsman, when I've only just learned that one exists for this kind of thing.

Anyway that's all messy and horrible. How is everyone?

Currently reading De Profundis and Other Prison Writings which I am enjoying much more this time 'round. I think it is mostly because I can read a page or two and then pause to ruminate on it, whereas last time there wasn't that kind of leisure.

Bits and pieces going on life wise, lots of my limited time being spent contemplating depressing things and tallying up my failures...and telling myself off for tallying up failures rather than doing something USEFUL to try and achieve something more successful.

Super Suprise Party for Nanny's 80th? SUCCESS :D.

I am very impressed with my crazy, crazy Family after last weekend, for the party and the suprise both succeeded. Uncle Peter and John had invited her to stay at the same park where their Retreat is but she had no idea that Uncle Paul & Auntie Janet were coming to stay in their caravan and Mother and I had also booked another of the statics to stay. On Friday as we arrived we then found out Mum and I were staying next door to her! Luckily it was easy to find as the twins & their SOs had arranged with the cleaners to get in early and festooned Nanny's caravan in banners, balloons and streamers. She was just settled in when the door opened and THE WRONG TWIN walked in to the one she expected, followed by Auntie Janet and Mum and me. She was so surprised! Then, for the soiree the next day I'd got a big poster printed and Uncle Peter and John had a giant carboard cut out of the queen which we glued Nanny's face to and put it in the window of The Retreat, again festooned in bunting and things, and so Nanny arrived to see not only that but my other Aunties, Uncles and also my cousins Zog and Bean (sadly, Prawn couldn't come as he had an exam on Monday). She was so happy! And just generally spoilt all weekend we ate delicious food and talked, drank tankards of tea and it was really, really great.

Now we can all breathe a sigh of relief that we pulled it off! Trying to keep a secret for so long that was this big was driving us all potty towards the end- I was worse than most as whilst the brothers and sisters conspired I kept getting sent to keep Nanny talking!

So yes, it was lovely and very relaxing to be in the middle of the nowhere with exceedingly limited mobile signal. I re-read Second Hand read The Graveyard Book and watched ParaNorman.

But back to work I am now. I have to give a very important presentation tomorrow evening. At the moment I am only mildly concerned, mostly because I'm too tired to work up to a full-scale panic I think. It'll be fine. As long as no one heckles.

The other reason my head has been up my rear for months is that I have been buying a house. This is a HUGE THING and very scary to someone who has lived in the same house all his life (truly, Mum actually told me "I got the keys for the house on Saturday and you arrived the following Tuesday"). All things being well I get the keys soon, although we aren't moving all in one go, Mum and I, as we have the luxury at the moment of not having to, so I can get into the New House and decorate and arrange for various workmen to come and Do Things to it before I have to actually put all the big furniture in. So that's good. Terrifying, but good.

*collapses in a heap* *only not really because I need to email the solicitors about some last minute stuff*

Life is very troublesome at the moment. Soon I will probably explain why but at the moment I can't really, although those of you who do view my blog via Deadjournal rather than Dreamwidth may notice that I have temporarily let my paid account die. I will probably ressurect it in the next few days but my head's been up my arse (not helped by the fact the new outlook seems determined to put all notifications in the junk EVEN WHEN I TELL IT NOT TO).

Today I have worked on Essay 2 and completed Draft 1, then gone through it with the red pen of doom. It is not going to be my best work but I simply can't help that, I haven't the time to go as deeply as I would like to, but at the moment I think it's looking pretty okay. Now if I can get it sorted in the next day or so then I can go and see Iron Man 3! (That's a strong motivator, although occasionally I am gripped by a fear I am making it into too strong of a motivator, as I'm a teensy bit scared that I might not like Iron Man 3...I REALLY LIKED 1 & 2 but this will hopefully be the first Iron man I see actually at the pictures so there's some pressure there).

I have also been reading some Harry Potter fics for a change, mostly ones that are long serials that I had read but of course have since been updated. I'm randomly in a real mood for long plotty Harry-centric gen, either Master of Death stuff, which I love anyway, but also Sevitus/Snape-Adopts-Harry fic. Sadly I'm finding filtering for this on Ao3 is really bloody difficult, but for some reason my browser hates potions and snitches. In that it shows me three chapters in a readable font and then randomly one in a tiny tiny font which the text enlargement ceases to work on so I have to manually zoom into my screen to read. Which sucks quite a bit. Luckily the two I have been (re)reading were also posted on Ao3 so I've found them on P&S then opened Ao3 and found them on there, as I can actually read it without killing my already somewhat troublesome eyes (I need an appointment. It is in my future. Probably next month).

I've given up fanfiction for Lent. I am trying to make this even include those fics on Archive Of Our Own which email direct to my inbox when they're updated. The Blind!Tony one in particular is KILLING ME. But then, it's meant to be hard and horrible and difficult to give up, otherwise it wouldn't be a Lent thing.

I've just finished reading Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt. I am the first person to have it out of the library, I've had it on reserve since I knew a copy was being ordered.

I can't actually seem to stop sobbing. It was so very beautiful.

Life has lots in it at the moment also, which is possibly making me a little oversensitive.

This evening I am mostly having a fit of artistic temprement, which in my house is termed for "Being A Melodramatic Ranting Wanker". But it's all rotten and I can't write. I'm desperate, dying, deranged to write something, anything, a smutty limeric, a tiny bit of verse, a drabble, a flash fiction ANYTHING that I can write and think "That's okay." But I haven't managed one completed thing all month. I spend more time staring lost into space thinking of nothing to say, or writing down bits of words that never seem to gel together. I have IDEAS but nothing seems to formulate correctly. Which then makes me feel like a failure. Which is unpleasant.

Maybe I'm coming down with something, my throat is sore; if in doubt, blame the body rather than admit to fears of a dullard's soul.

In mildly brighter news I have submitted both my essay and virtual presentation on Monday. So that is good. My next module is Research Methods, which originally I was not looking forward to but after feeling like a dunce for the last few months feels like a breath of air. My readings for week one are IMMENSE so I made a small start yesterday, as I finished both my fiction library books (Gerald's Game by Stephen King and The Godfather by Owen Whittaker ) rather quicker than expected. The first reading is one of those late 30s social anthropologists, always fun and at least never too dry it's all "It was on the corner of forty-second street I first encountered Ronnie. He was a good boy, rought like they all were, but he must have thought there was some merit in what I was trying to do. Pretty soon Mama and Papa deVola were having me round the table for supper at least once a week like one of the family so when Joey, the youngest, got into some trouble at the local gambling dens, of course he came to find me, as did the guys he'd annoyed." Shades of....oh damn, what was that black and white Film Noir where the camera was restricted to the view of the main protagonist? My google-fu is not working tongiht.

In 2012 I read 40 books and watched 44 films

This is (once again) a decline in books (last year I read 45) but an increase in films (last year I watched 37).

Books
I think I could attribute some of my drop in the books both to reading some rather hefty tomes and also a lot of Uni reading. (and fic, always the fic).

Best Book I Read for the First Time in 2012 was:

I kind of want to say one of the Temeraire books I read, but the problem is I can't actually remember what happened in which book. So probably Robbie Ross: Oscar Wilde's True Love by J. Fryer

The Worst Book I Read in 2012 was:

Becoming Jane Eyre by S Kohler it had random pointless obsessions with sex and sex parts early on which (figuratively at least) dropped off but the book never really recovered.

The Funniest Book was:

Wow, again, I don't read many funny books do I? Was probably The Masters of Sitcom from Hancock to Steptoe by C Stephens it's non-fiction but included a lot of extracts from scripts.

The most poignant/moving book:

The Book Thief by M Zusak

Favourite Re-read/Old Favourite:

I re-read What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge which is one of my absolute favourites. I also however re-read On Writing by Steven King which I (again) couldn't bear to put down.

Full list of my books of 2012: http://listography.com/localfreak/books/books_of_2012

Films

I don't usually do New Year's Resolution. But last year I privately resolved that, now my home town has a cinema, I would Go To The Pictures More, even if it meant going on my own. By my reckoning I saw 14 films at the cinema, just over 1 per month which I am very pleased about.

The Best Film I Watched in 2012:

I watched A LOT of awesome films. At the pictures I particularly loved Avengers Assemble but I also loved The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Rise of the Guardians quite a lot.

Also following the Avengers I then watched A LOT of superhero films this year and fell madly for Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (BLACK WIDOW!). I watched a lot of seriously cool stuff this year.

The Worst Film I watched in 2012:

The worst film I watched at the cinema was undoubtedly We Bought a Zoo which was (in turns) dull, predictable, tripey, lacking in animals and ever so slightly culturally insensitive (Fine so you took a RL story based in the UK and set it in the USA? That's fine. What isn't fine is then having the Zoo's Grand Opening on 7/7. It just felt like...seriously lost in translation here. And it was boring.

The worst film I watched all year however has to be A Christmas Carol the Musical which happened to be the only Christmassy thing on telly the Saturday before Christmas, when I was putting up the tree. WORDS FAIL to fully explain the mawkish, badly acted, badly directed schmaltz that totally lacked any of the sublteties that provide the needed tension in the story. Fail. Bad film. If it was a choice again between that or Jeremy Kyle...okay so it would still win but I would not be so quick to make that call.

The Funniest Film Was: probably either Avengers Assemble or Rise of the Guardians. Or My Best Friend Is A Vampire

The Most Uplifting Film Was: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Because it was WONDERFUL.

Favourite Re-Watch:

Either Passport to Pimlico which is one of my all-time-absolute favourite films or Basil, the Great Mouse Detective

Full list of my films for 2012: http://listography.com/localfreak/movies/films_of_2012

First Monday back is probably the hardest day in the world. Killer headache for most of the day. I was going to do some sort of rec post but my brain is cabbaged to it will have to wait. I've read my first two books of the year now. The first was Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler

( my thoughts )

The second one is the reason I was going to do a fannish post soon. For I have been reading Harry Potter/Temeraire crossovers. And Then a Sharpe/Temeraire crossover. I'd heard about Temeraire books before but as I am iffy both on historical novels (my mum reads a lot of them and although I want to like them I often find them hard going) and fantasy I wasn't really tempted. But then there were crossovers and it all started sounding kind of lovely and fun and not like "You must travel to the great fire pits of Agrisin-Baye and there battle the forces you find before snatching the dragon's egg from the eye of the Unburning Fires" kind of book. So I made up my mind to ask a friend to lend them to me. Then on Saturday I realised we had some in the library. Amusingly, I was first disappointed to find the second and third but not the first in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section, and then found out that the first one (and the fourth) both lived downstairs in the Historical section. Lol. So, still wary, I only got the first one out (in case I didn't like it).

I finished it in a day. Suffice to say I really did like it and found the friendship between Laurence and Temeraire absolutely adorable and fun and I am not at work for three weeks. Now, I do have about a MILLION books to read in the meantime so I must make the tricky decision: Do I send a messenger to the library to exchange book one for book two OR do I wait patiently and read something else in the meantime. There is merit to both. On the one hand I did like the first book and am holding off reading the Temeraire-only fic until I read the others because of spoilers, so the desire to Read THem All is quite a pull, on the other hand I don't want to read them all so fast I get story-fatigue. It has been the killer of books past, and often the reason I don't read many books that run in a series. It doesn't mean I stop liking them, but if I dive in too quick I then find myself unable to read them again for years at a time. It happened with Prisoner of Azkaban- I read it about six times in a month some years ago, and haven't been able to focus on reading it since. It doesn't mean I don't like it anymore but I just find myself unable to look at it. It's a bit like if you've ever eaten too much of something- when Muppets in Space came out at the pictures myself and a friend went to see it and she ordered a large bag of popcorn to herself, so I did the same. I ended up giving her the half I couldn't finish and haven't been able to stomach sweet popcorn since.

So I'm not sure. On the one hand it could be good for me to wait to get book two for a few weeks, on the other hand I'm not sure I'll last that long, particularly as I have access from home to the library catalogue and I know that we have a copy of the second book in the local library. I'd have to bomb-it home to get there before it shut one day but still...