Log: December 8, 2025

[welcometohighwater]

Hey.  Can I have a break now.  Please.  At least I've got a Belug helping me out today.

READING

• I am starting to fear I might not make my modest reading goal for the year of 25 books.  I'm only at 22 and I'm having a lot of difficulty carving out the time to do a proper Sit Down and read.  Not a big deal, but it makes me kinda sad.  One reason I know my stats are down a bit is because I spent WAY more time listening to straight podcasts this year, and not cramming in an hour of book listening a day-ish, too.  But THAT'S FINE.  Magic Tavern hit me like a bug.  Frankly I want to have the TIME to let it take me over like that again.  It's so fun and delightful and it just makes me very happy.
• Speaking of audiobooks--dipping in and out of Oathbound by Tracy Deonn still.  Never believe me if I say the series isn't excellent, because it really is.  It's just one of those that is SO GOOD, but isn't gonna change my life.  Also, of course, the end of a month meant Hoopla's Bonus Borrows struck again.  I had planned on starting The House Witch by Delemhach, since it's been on my list for ages, but then somehow my downloads got corrupted and it downloaded Carol by Darin Kennedy for both The House Witch and Carol, so I started Carol instead.  Eh, why not, anyway?  I'm trying to reserve judgment for now, but I may have thoughts.
• Which brings up: I am also reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  Tradition, sure, but also it's just REALLY GOOD.  And I found a really nice facsimile edition at 5 Below I picked up, so I have to read it again now, right?
• Also still making my way through Peter Straub's Ghost Story (yikes)--it's definitely picking up now, at least!

LISTENING

• Podcasts  Mostly I am barely keeping up with things.  Woof.  Usual list here.  Very much enjoying Arnie Niekamp's Christmas music miniseries, No Skip Christmas!  I won't call any of them a highlight yet, but I did really love Jess McKenna and Zach Reino's episode, in part because apparently Jess McKenna and I are extremely similar holiday people.  She ensured that a Sufjan Stevens song made the playlist!  Yay!  Perhaps not what would have been my top choice of Sufjan song (that probably would have been "Barcarola," which is beautiful but utterly heartbreaking, or really especially his version of "O Holy Night," which is absolutely my favorite carol of all time, and he brings a sort of frantic rawness to his arrangement that speaks deeply to me), but probably the right choice for a playlist like the one Arnie is crafting.  Like, the alternative suggestion I would make would be "Lumberjack Christmas/No One Can Save You from Christmases Past" from Silver & Gold, which has the same sort of energy as "Come On!  Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!" except that "Come On!" leans into the nostalgia of childhood Christmases that's probably a better fit, while "Lumberjack Christmas" has a more grown-up sort of bitterness that feels right for the person I am now.
• Music  Obviously, previously discussed, a lot of Christmas music in the general daily life of it all, in the car and in communal spaces and whatnot.  But personally I am digging into my Apple Replay, listening straight on through my top hundred songs of the year.  Like a snake sucking its own dick, I am fully loving it.  Banger after banger.  My taste is immaculate, to me.

WATCHING

• Shoot from the Hip on YouTube.  About to buy my Candlenights streaming ticket (and just pray I get the chance to watch before it goes off VOD).  Christmas movies, of course.  We're not gonna go into that much more here, today, but I am a fan of the oldies (It's a Wonderful Life, natch, but also Christmas in Connecticut, The Bishop's Wife, We're No Angels, The Shop Around the Corner, my list of classics goes on and on and on . . .).
• Really I gotta just cut this section unless or until I start some kind of meaningful series watch or something.  Newsradio popped up unexpectedly somewhere recently--maybe?

DOING

• Surviving?  Does that count?  Yeah?  Even if it's only kinda and barely hanging on?
• Very little for personal enjoyment and/or enrichment.  It's work and family stuff at this time of year.  Various winter holidays mean more of both, and it's my niece's birthday quite soon.
• Gotta start working on homes for the Candy Crew soon!  I think I'm taking Smoky Bear, No Relation for her spay tomorrow morning (in the FREEZING COLD).

Putting in a formal request with the powers that be for a peaceful January, and maybe some snow?  Maybe pencil that in for February, though.