Amal Nahurriyeh

*Nearly to the other half of the ribbing on the capelet, so shortly I should be able to start the... third one, and the first with colorwork eek.

*Self that was not a cue to come up with an even more intricate way to do the colorwork EVEN IF you probably could succeed at it, stop that.

*Downstairs neighbor moved out last week HURRAY but now they're doing the carpet/paint/repair rounds so that someone else can move in. On the upside, Dire Noises from below is less "OH GOD THERE'S A LEOPARD IN THE TREE IT'S GONNA EAT ME" than the roofers, and so I can both be calmer for the cat's sake and play guessing games as to just what on earth they could POSSIBLY be drilling in the CEILING. Although given the extent of the noises, I suspect they're doing the full remodel to update the style from the late 80s/early 90s. Which involves ceiling fans and lights going in - quite nice ones! - and would account for the drilling directly beneath my laptop.

*I appear to be having a miserable allergy attack? or an oncoming cold. I'm hoping for the former because fuuuuuck getting sick I don't care if it's a tradition right around my birthday. Hmph. It IS, however, also that time of year where everything gets shut up and my indoor allergies slowly go bonkers.

*Wrote my first Irish tune ever, which does not suck! I... keep seriously underestimating both my knowledge of the genre and my basic grounding in theory, which lets me write something passable off a couple bars of randomly-generated notes. Like sure: not gonna win awards for composition here, but it's fundamentally playable - by more than one instrument, even - and makes musical sense.

*Related: I can now play a full 96 bars in spiccato (that's bow-bouncing) as an exercise, which means the strengthening stuff I was doing to target my bow grip has had EXACTLY the effect I needed it to. Mildly twinge-y for a minute or so right after, but otherwise totally fine after running warm water over my hands and doing quick stretches.

*Maybe this time (as I'm pretty sure this is not the first time I've come up with the brain-hack), the idea of doing dishes after practice as a PART of tending to my assorted musician needs will stick? That'd be nice. Because it really does help to have warm water on my hands after I work my cranky ass off on the fiddle.

*I think I've crawled out of the anhedonia enough to care about shit again. I just don't have the spoons to DO all the shit I care about at once, so I'm having to rigorously pace myself and check back in with, am I too tired to do X? What about Y? etc. This eats exactly as many spoons that I could otherwise use TO do stuff as you fucking think, and I fucking resent it. Not enough to take the hit and go crashing back down, though.

*As it might be up some of my droll's alley for mocking if nothing else: I strongly advise against Mindhunters, the new Netflix how-did-we-learn-to-classify-serial-killers series, if you have any gore squicks/triggers. I was in the perfect mood to watch and mock to folks in chat! And within the first five minutes( cut for gore )

. Now, I'm honestly one of the harder people to make run away from gore? I watch The Last Kingdom for shits and giggles, you guys. I keep thinking about picking up Vikings and not being quite sure if I'm up to that level of gore, as it seems to be up a notch or two from TLK, but the point stands. THAT SAID, that is USUALLY a bridge too far for shows, and they cut away, or they'll have a convenient bit of scenery/blocking to hide the worst of it, or SOMETHING. But no. No definitely not. And I'm not up for the casual ablism of the 1970s or whenever the fuck that was supposed to be, either.

Anyway. SO NOW YOU KNOW. Since Netflix kept going "oh you liked Criminal Minds WATCH THIS WATCH IT WATCH IT" and I kept going "...not for actual FUN, guys."

*I think I am going to hit post and pull silly iPhone games over my head for a bit, then tackle the next bathroom to clean, then dinner and so forth. If I'm very lucky, this will NOT be another death-plague and I can get some editing done tonight for White Noise.