localcrumb: (Default)
2025-05-01 08:39 pm

hello me again

hello to all my crumbs in the audience, its a pleasure to see you all here tonight!! i've been going thru some life changes that have thrown me into terror dread confusion disarray and many other things, so i did not post in april oopsie!! i also had lots of fun plans for april that all got cancelled bc of those aforementioned life changes, so i don't think i've done enough interesting things to warrant a full report(tm) this time around

HOWEVER

i do want to talk about some things i did manage this month!! 

i read a few more of my standard pretentious world literature books - we do not part by han kang, which took me a while to get through and didn't leave me with as much to remember as the vegetarian did, and lost souls meet under the full moon by mizuki tsujimura, which came nowhere near the emotions her last book gave me - but then i felt left out by all the fun art i was seeing online so i caved and read ummm the new hunger games book. i'm a bit of a snob about reading teen/YA stuff as an adult and i'm an even bigger snob about things that are trending, so i avoided the ballad of songbirds and snakes like the absolute PLAGUE when it came out. honestly, i felt the same about sunrise on the reaping, so i'm not really sure what prompted me to actually read it, but anyway. i'm glad i did! i ended up chewing through both books in about 3 days all in all, and they were very fun and interesting additions to the canon. i can't lie - i don't think these books are some revolutionary masterpieces. the political messages aren't unique to the series by any stretch of the imagination. they're pretty standard for the dystopia genre, and i don't think they're going to spark a mass gen z uprising or anything. that being said... man, they do kinda slap. the worldbuilding always reminds me of margaret atwood's madaddam series, with the little pinches of information about the setting that let the reader use context clues to expand for themselves - always my preferred method of delivery, instead of the reams of exposition and definitions of in-universe portmanteaus and slang that other YA novels seem to love. i ended up rereading the first novel in the original hunger games trilogy right after, and i'll admit to crying multiple times. sometimes nostalgia and some easy reading is a good treat, i guess!!

as well as easy reading, i've also gone in on easy watching this month. i'm still obsessed with severance and at first, i thought i wanted more prestige tv to keep the ball rolling, but i found that i couldn't watch more than one episode of the sopranos at a time before my brain felt like it was over-full of information and emotion. instead, i've gone for some proper good slop. yellowjackets season 3 was prime material for heckling the tv, and i loved-hated every minute of it. the show has absolutely lost its way since season 1, and it's not got the film buff bait that riverdale had in abundance, but my beloved james and i made a ritual (HaHa) out of watching it every week and. well. it sure was tv that we watched. to keep the slop ball rolling, i've now binged the entirety of high potential in about 4 days. once again, it sure is tv that i am watching. i'll always have a soft spot for crime shows, whether they're dark and brooding or stupid and tropey like this one is. i only wish that kaitlin olson hadn't been swept up by the evil ryan reynolds/blake lively hollywood industrial complex and had so much horrendous work done on her face. it seems like a waste for such a generational comedic actress to look like she's smelling a fart 90% of the time.

soooo whats da point in all this...

well ummm.... life kinda sucks sometimes! actually especially now! my new job has blown up my workload massively for an absolutely minimal payrise, and the explosion has completely eclipsed the social and creative habits that i'd just started to form this year. being a trans person seems to be a bigger and bigger burden every week. i try not to think about it too much, but it's inescapable at the moment. sometimes i worry that i've completely missed my chance to shore myself up against the rising cuts to our medical and personal wellbeing. i want to go and see james again, because our trip to new york was such genuine bliss, but it'll be at least four years before i'm not running the risk of being forced to squat and cough in front of a tsa agent before being deported for having a mullet and a twitter account where i retweet posts from stats for lefties. all of this stuff is entirely out of my hands, it turns out. i can do things to add my brushstrokes to the bigger picture, like protesting and donating to fundraisers, but nothing can change the immediate future. i have to suck up the fact that the next day, week, month - fuck, probably year - are all going to be at least a bit shit. so maybe i can have a stupid brain month for once. i'm still keeping up with all the news that i'm morally obliged to. i'm still following the bds boycott list. i'm still spending a small fortune on art and fundraisers for queer people in my community. but i've decided to let myself feed my brain some junk food this month. there's enough real suffering jostling for space in my skull right now - i'm happy to spare it the extra baggage for the moment.
localcrumb: (Default)
2025-03-24 12:43 am
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posting twice in one month yay

 ok hello again!! i'm gonna do a report and also just talk more abt stuff that's been on my mind recently i think yay

reading: baby you KNOW i'm always reading smth!! since last time, i have admittedly read another agatha christie book - the hollow, which was my other bday poirot purchase (tm) and it was once again good but not great. some of the characters were interesting but personally, i like it when my poirot novels have a lot of poirot in them and this one did not have enough of that little guy. after finishing the hollow, i picked up one of the most expensive books i've bought in recent memory: dream count, by chimamanda ngozi adichie.

i have a complicated relationship with adichie; for a long time, she was my favourite author and i considered her to be a generational voice. she was my gateway into diversifying my reading habits, really. unfortunately, she tarnished her reputation with a series of weird and contradictory takes on trans people, eventually allying herself pretty overtly with jk rowling. i've joked a lot about how it was easy to have her as my favourite author despite this because she hadn't written a book in a decade so i didn't have to worry about if i could continue to support her, but... um, well, then she wrote a book and i had to decide if i was going to buy it or not. and i did buy it. so that's that. anyway. i really wanted to love dream count. i mean, it cost £20 so it needed to be good. it was... idk, idk. parts of it were amazing. however, parts of it were just weird. it reminded me a lot of critiques that cindy pham levelled at yellowface. the majority of the book's protagonists were insanely wealthy, at least one of them through corrupt politics, but any criticism of this was delivered from the mouths of characters that existed largely as the stereotypical 'woke left' parody. it just felt so weird. like, i don't know, in 2025, i think we can handle more nuanced feminism than 'corrupt millionaire man bad, corrupt millionaire woman good'.

my other issue didn't come until after i'd finished the book. one of the four protagonists is a guinean woman called kadiatou who works as a hotel maid in america and is sexually assaulted by a wealthy french politician. in dream count, kadiatou is swept up in a media frenzy as the story heads towards her facing her assaulter in court, only for the case to be dropped when the prosecution deem kadiatou an unreliable victim due to her poor english causing conflicting accounts of her past. when the news is broken to her that the case is being dropped, kadiatou and her daughter celebrate, and the book closes with the two basking in the joy and relief of knowing that their ordeal is over. if this was a wholly fictional account, i could appreciate this as a nuanced, albeit strange, depiction of the way that the legal system treats victims of sexual assault. imagine my surprise and horror when i started to read the acknowledgements and realised that kadiatou is very heavily inspired by a real woman who really was sexually assaulted by a wealthy french politician, and whose case really was dropped. i just can't fathom choosing to fictionalise that, seemingly without any permission from the real victim, and then choosing to let the moral of the story be that she would have been much happier never seeking justice. looking back, i don't really know why i gave dream count 4/5 on goodreads but ah well. cheers to another long book review.

eating: i have a lot of one-sided beef with shops and cafes in my local area. these are all for completely arbitrary reasons. for quite a while, i've nursed a deep hatred for a cafe that brands their takeaway cups with slop-brained girl dinner in my very demure era etc etc bullshit, because i hate those trends and because thinking about all those disposable plastic cups going to landfill once the memes become dated makes me furious. recently, i caved to their £5 coffee and elaborate treat deal and i've eaten quite a few of their jammy dodger 'brownies' in the last two weeks. i hesitate to actually call it a brownie because it has the texture and taste of uncooked cookie dough, but it is unfortunately delicious. their coffee is shit though so at least i'm vindicated there.

playing: my partner bought us it takes two so we can actually play a game together for once, and it's been fun! the dialogue is a little horrendous but the gameplay itself is very silly and fun. i was worried i'd be shit at it because i've seen so many tiktoks of people being bad at it, but i think maybe all those people were just bad at games. i'm always in favour of more co-op games that aren't just farming sims or shooters

obsessing: SEVERANCE!!!! it's the best tv show in the whole entire world and this week's season finale was INSANE. i cried so hard that i had a nosebleed and had to take a break from watching. i can't remember the last time i was this moved by a tv show. it's got me reading fanfic on my lunch break and making my own playlists and shit. please watch severance you can get a free trial of apple tv if you have amazon prime and then you can just cancel it afterwards pleaseeee

recommending: SEVERANCE!!!! sorry that's all i can think about atm. pleas watch it

treating: cannot stop having baths at the moment. if i need to shower but i'm really enjoying whatever i'm reading or watching? baby i'm taking that to the fucking TUB. i don't even have any nice bubble bath or anything, i'm just laying in plain hot water for the love of it all.

UM yeah okay. thats my report. the reading part always gets longer and longer because i'm really back into reading again yay!!! i used to be a voracious reader, when i moved out when i was 18 i had hundreds and hundreds of books i had to get rid of - bookcases in my bedroom, bookcases in the hallway, sliding drawers under my bed full of books (and bottles of sourz) - but over time, i really lost my passion for it. whenever i had a long train journey, i'd read during it and then have a flurry of books afterwards, but i could never sustain it for too long. i think obsessing over agatha christie has helped ease me into reading more strenuous stuff again. there's something very enjoyable about reading things that actually engage your brain, that force you to consider what's in front of you and what you're going to take away from it. i've got han kang's latest book lined up to start next, so hopefully that hits me as hard as the vegetarian did.

i was going to write more about the leigh bowery exhibition i went to at the start of the month but this has already gotten too long and i need to stop at some point if i want to post this briefly on my insta story and not feel completely mortified so im done now ok byeeee
localcrumb: (Default)
2025-03-12 09:11 pm
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baby i didn't even post monthly

what can i say, nobody's perfect! working in retail over xmas is a fine way to suck your soul dry of any creative impulses, and then i immediately went from that into joining a new hobby so i've been all over the place. i could probably write a post abt some of the stuff i've been doing but i'll just do a report for now and see where the mood takes me another time

reading: the agatha christie obsession ploughs on - i've read a few dull ones recently so i fell off for a while, but as part of my birthday shopping i did treat myself to a modest two (2) new books. i finished the big four today and it was good, but not amazing. i think the obsession might be starting to wear off! i've been way more gripped by other books recently. i read butter by asako yuzuki in january and fuck me, what a book. i always hesitate to buy stuff when it's really being pushed by retailers, so i held off on buying it during waterstones' big push and by the time i got around to reading it, negative reviews had started cropping up from people really slagging it off. that made me more curious to read it lol so i gave it a try and MAN. i really think it's gonna be my book of the year. people who sought it out looking for something like hannibal or killing eve with grisly murder and constant confrontations between murderer and investigator were going to be disappointed right from the get go, because butter is way more of a study on misogyny in japan. reading it felt like i was eating one of the lavish meals in the novel; it was perfect, but i had to keep taking breathers and allowing myself time to savour the different arcs, and i ended up taking a lot longer than i normally would to read a book like this because i found myself relishing it so slowly. i've got two more "proper" books lined up from my birthday shopping, so hopefully my next report(tm) will be about interesting things and not about more murder mystery slop.

eating: i had a solo expedition to london last week (yet more birthday antics) and i spent a while wandering around chinatown trying to figure out what to buy for lunch. the city i moved to as an adult isn't much of a food hotspot, so i always feel this pressure to make sure i make my trips elsewhere "worth it" by getting great and interesting food. i ended up veering into good friend chicken. it's by no means new to me; i was a very dweeby teenager, and my friends and i spent a lot of time lingering in chinatown in terrible cosplay, but i remember feeling too awkward to go in and order anything because it was always so busy. last week, i finally got to try their fried squid and fuck me, it was so good. i can't believe i could have been eating this for years. it was hot and gelatinous and covered in sweet dried seaweed, and unlike almost every other meal in london, it cost me less than a tenner.

playing: lots of people have lots to say about slay the princess, an indie horror game that quickly got pulled into the same slop mill as other indie horror gems like sirenhead, doomed to be trapped in youtube kids videos for all eternity. i, however, have more to say about black tabby games' other game, a visual novel called scarlet hollow. i backed the kickstarter in 2020 and aside from returning to the game whenever a new episode is released, i periodically find myself drawn back to yet another playthrough of it. if you're a fan of appalachian folklore, creeping dread, and the chance to romance not one but TWO monsters, i cannot recommend this game enough.

obsessing: SEVERANCEEEEE oh my god im sick im unwell im PLAGUED with visions of severance, i can't stop thinking about it. it's so so so good. unspeakably good. ignore how bad the season 1 marketing was. please watch severance.

recommending: well i already recommended severance and scarlet hollow just now but lets pretend i haven't recommended anything yet. umm. i recommend self improvement and trying to learn new habits - or unlearn bad ones! i think january is a really shit time of year to try and do resolutions but now that spring is tentatively arriving, it feels a lot easier to try and better yourself. i'm making very slow progress in that direction, and i recommend it :^)

treating: greggs sausage bap for breakfast babyyyyy 

OKAY that was a long report lol!!! maybe i'll vanish for another few months, maybe not, who knows!! i went to see a really good exhibition at the tate that i'd like to write about but it's hard to feel like it's worth doing it when i'm not going to have anything to say that's not been said by anyone else. oh well thats life!!! happy march guyz
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2024-11-24 10:38 pm
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so i did not in fact post weekly

whoopsies!! i did not post weekly!! to be fair to myself i did Write some posts abt stuff ive been doing, but i got embarrassed thinking about posting them :/ if i want people to see my posts (which i think i do) then i have to share this page w people, but then that means people see my posts!! wah wah

anyway lol i'm gonna do another report (reading eating playing obsessing recommending treating) because it's less vulnerable than sharing my thoughts on stuff :))

reading: i'm still on my agatha christie kick!! i most recently read postern of fate, which i discovered afterwards is not very popular At All. i think if i hadn't read more about the context of the novel, i would have agreed that it was quite shit. it's filled with weird rambling dialogue and lapses into descriptions of things that seem like they're going to be relevant but never get another mention: random items from the protagonists' house, plots of real children's novels, error-riddled recollections of previous christie novels. i would be lying if i said it was an easy read, or even a particularly satisfying one. sometimes, it seems like the characters themselves have forgotten that they're meant to be solving a mystery. however, knowing more about the background has made me feel quite fond of it. it was one of the last books christie wrote before she died. as is often the case, the book's setting (a rundown house being renovated by its new elderly owners) is inspired by a place from christie's own life. in this instance, it's inspired by her own childhood home. suddenly the obsession with old toys and idiosyncratic details about the house make total sense. i can't help but feel this weird bruising sadness when i imagine this elderly woman struggling to hash out yet another novel, continually lapsing into nostalgic interludes about her childhood. in the novel, the house's previous owners leave behind an array of children's toys and books, and the protagonists go to great lengths to lovingly care for and play with these things. i wonder if christie found pleasure in imagining her old possessions being loved again.

eating: i went back to the korean restaurant that i posted about in my last report lol, it's not really interesting but it's worth noting :)

playing: i'm doing music instead of a viddy game this time!! i can't stop listening to joyride (yeah the kesha song lol) but i especially love listening to it while watching this stupid video edit set to it. it's like fucking cocomelon to me, i'm transfixed every time.

obsessing: almost 20 years late to the party, i'm finally playing dragon age yippee!! i got fomo seeing people playing veilguard (the newest installment in the franchise, very long-awaited and very nearly scrapped many times) and i knew i'd love it if i played it. however, dragon age lore is very dense so i decided to start from the very beginning by playing dragon age: origins, which released in 2009. it's almost old enough to be one of my teenage coworkers. despite some expected hiccups (both in terms of trying to get the game to run + encountering some classic 2000s humour/attitudes) it's been very very charming, and i understand how people fell in love with the franchise so immediately. i put this in my 'obsessing' category because i think about it constantly when i'm not at home, and then when i do get home, sometimes i'm so hooked on having a 'perfect' gameplay experience that i don't even play the game.

recommending: for this report i am recommending just CHILLEN!!! from now until january i think everyone should do as little as possible, esp if u work in retail or any other industry that is absolutely ravaged by the christmas period

treating: i finally ponied up and got myself quite a hefty treat this month - some fancy and weird PERFUMES!! i've been a longtime admirer of sixteen92 perfumes and love reading reviews of their bizarre fragrances. i really enjoyed the fragrance oils a friend gifted me from black phoenix alchemy labs and decided to finally delve a little deeper into weird boutique fragrances for myself. i apologise in advance to my coworkers who are going to be smelling them on me 5 days a week. the one i'm most excited for is inspired by the IT novel/films/etc, and promises to smell like "rain-drenched iron, distant circus lights, candy floss, a red balloon". wonderful.
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2024-10-14 08:24 pm
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first post waow

hello i've never even kept a diary before but i wanted to start having things to look back on :) i'm gonna try and do a weekly report + also maybe some other stuff depending on if i've done anything w my life recently (not super likely unfortunately)

anyway here is the first report yippee yay! REPORT stands for reading eating playing obsessing recommending treating

reading: ive spent this year reading almost exclusively agatha christie novels, usually in bursts of reading abt 10 books in two weeks followed by a break while i try to find more books, and then another flurry of reading. for the first time since this phase started, i actually bought two books brand new instead of from a second hand shop - and they were both SO good. so this week i read dumb witness and mrs mcginty's dead, both by agatha christie, and they're some of the best of her novels that i've read so far. sorry this one was long oops
eating: me and two friends from work went to a korean table bbq place and it was Very delicious, i ate a load of pork belly (predictable) and a huge pile of broccoli (unexpected)
playing: this prompt is very open-ended and i think sometimes i'll use it to mean music or a ttrpg or something. however this week me and james have revived our toontown obsession so i have been playing a tonne of that! we're grinding for resources and hp boosts so we can do some big boy fights
obsessing: i'm obsessing over how cold it finally is YAY!!! i bought a second hand dickies coat a few months ago during the heatwave and i finally get to wear it and it's sooo warm yippee
recommending: i'm late to this podcast but i listened to it after seeing the hype for the netflix docu - sweet bobby is a very interesting listen
treating: my favourite tattoo artist has finally released some prints onto her online shop so i'm going to get one for my office wall :}

ok that's all for my first report!! hopefully i won't forget to do this again..
   
bonus imgs: james' toon managed to get a fun freezeframe w a very chatty guy we played with, and also my korean bbq :^)