It’s the middle of the month, I have two weeks of furlough left probably. I’ve gotten quite a few overdue personal projects done, but I have a bad habit of having so many projects on the go that even if I complete several I don’t maintain much of a sense of accomplishment. It’s tricky. Still, one of them is tidying up the website a bit, cleaning up the menus and links, and updating the art pages. It needed doing anyway, but if I’m planning on entering any virtual art shows, an up to date website seems critical. It’s also nice …
Revolution?
It’s a weird time to post anything personal without feeling navel gazing at best, and honestly there isn’t that much to share in practical terms. I’ve been watching the news and feeling the rollercoaster of emotions that accompanies doing that, but in this moment at least it feels hopeful. I’ve often felt very cynical about American’s relationship with protest and civil disobedience compared to other nations. This feels different, at least from way over here, and there are real radical changes being seriously discussed like defunding the police, along with smaller but long overdue concrete actions like removing monuments honouring …
Virtual congoing
Last weekend was a bank holiday in the UK and Memorial Day in the States. Once upon a time would have that meant Baycon, Fanime, Clockwork Alchemy, and more would all be running at the same time, and I’d be popping between at least two of them and hearing rumours and news from the rest. Obviously that ended once I moved to the UK, but the muscle memory is still there, and I still had the vicarious enjoyment from social media and the occasional text. This year, all of the above have been postponed anyway. But a few cons elsewhere …
Furloughed
After a couple of months of very busy, and then not so busy, I was furloughed last week. The UK furlough scheme runs in three week cycles, so I have at least another two weeks. Most likely they will re-up and I won’t be working until the end of June, but that isn’t guaranteed. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I have plenty of projects that I’ve ben neglecting, so keeping busy has not been an issue. The garden has gotten some much needed attention, in time to become a useful space during this lovely weather. And my office/studio, which had …
May the Fourth
Star Wars day falls on a Monday, which is when we play our Edge of the Empire weekly role play, so that works out. Besides that we’ve been playing various boardgames from John’s collection. Some Imperial Assault, the app version. Some random small games like Welcome to Dinoworld, which I am abysmally bad at. But mostly Arkham Horror, we’ve played several kinds but this weekend we started the app version, which is not bad at all. Meanwhile I’ve finally gotten back onto the PS4 on a regular basis, sinking my teeth into Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s a very pretty game, …
Food, glorious food.
John and I take turns cooking dinner, just like before lockdown, we were already pretty good at using up our veg box to get a nice variety of dishes. Obviously now we also eat weekday breakfast and lunch at home, usually breakfast is just toast or cereal, lunch we have together but it’s mostly random who makes it, plus lately the weather has been nice enough we can have it outside. We were a bit surprised that our grocery bill has gone up, but of course we’re buying the larger sizes and planning ahead for things that we might need …
First month
Lockdown is a month old now, things are still going as well as they can here. Both of us are still working, my job is slowing down a bit but with big swings as circumstances and regulations change in various countries. Work helps but we’ve settled into a few routines that help give the week shape; both of us get up at the same time, and for the past week or so have been taking our exercise in the morning so the park isn’t as busy. I usually make coffee and toast or cereal while John does the litter and …
Well shit
Normally I’d start off with the usual apologies for not having posted in ages, but that seems silly under the circumstances. Long story short, I stated working from home from March 19th and John was already doing so by then. Lockdown followed on the 23rd, and fortunately we’d been pretty stocked up between regular shopping habits, Brexit prep, and a few additional bits and pieces. We were already getting a weekly veg box, there are several good delivery services for bread, coffee, and beer, plus quite a few take outs and restaurants for the occasional treat. Our neighborhood is pretty …
Arts and crafts
So the good news I hinted at came through, but then I got so busy I forgot to post; I have an exhibition at the local bookstore through March 28th. The opening was yesterday, and while it didn’t exactly get crowded it was a fun time with a bunch of friends and a few strangers who were kind enough to buy some of the art, can’t ask for much more than that. On the crafts front, there’s a local antiques/crafts place that has opened a new location in town and I’ve secured a little shelf there. The timing was tricky …
Taste of con
Last weekend we went to the SciFi Ball for the day on Saturday. It’s a local convention which is almost the reverse of what I’m used to in some ways, with the big focus being on the evening events (hence the name) and cheap day tickets to just hit the panels and dealer’s room. While I am all about the nightlife, the evening ticket price was too steep for me at $145 so we just went for the afternoon on Saturday. Just walking into a hotel full of nerds makes me feel good, and there was a fair bit of …