My Gorgeous Routine

Here's a blog post direct from the dome. I mean, most of my posts are dome-based, but today I really just thought I'd sit down and type without a plan. Keeps me on my toes, and also is a nice way to be very direct and personal, which I always think of as the true essence of the blog. Y'know, lately I've been doing a lot of writing about the tasty media I've been slurping down, but right now I'm just here to present my own noodling consciousness. It's just gone noon as I write this, and it's time to commune with my blog.

I have a lot of routine changes to contend with in my life - I move around quite a lot to different places and different family members, and so the turmoil of that shifting has to be quieted. Sometimes it's just tough to adjust to a new place, or to someone else's way of doing things, and I have to carve out my own flexible structure and, when necessary, white knuckle it through jet lag.

Me, in a hotel room.

I think I've gotten pretty good at scheduling. Most of the people I talk to about the concept of being a freelancer in full control of the management of every second of your life express a kind of horror at the idea. I couldn't do that, they usually say. I would just sit on my ass all day. I would rot. Me, though - legend that I am - I have no problem committing to a self-imposed workday, and I think the bliss of knowing I have complete and total control over my own time and can take a delicious and soothing tea break at any moment keeps me diligent.

Bad painting I made of a sculpture I saw in a hotel room.

I mean, I have my bad days. I slip into a too-relaxed state sometimes, as is unavoidable. The human spirit craves pleasure. Some days you just need to watch an entire season of thoughtless or nostalgic TV and be done with it. And I think those breaks are nectar for the mind, we need them. Just chilling. But I have gotten to the point where my methods for managing my time are bolstered by the sheer pleasure of meeting my goals.

It reminds me, somehow, of the brief period when I worked in an office. I have such fond memories of that. Logging onto the company system, perusing the database, drafting a press release. I was always meant to be on the computer.

I use a running checklist of the basic tasks I have to do, and I try to make most of them a daily habit that I can check off. Here's the checklist as it stands:

About to tick off "Write a blog post".

You'll notice that some of these are fun things. Most of them, in fact. But those fun things are sort of like breakfast to me. Something satisfying and nutritious to get me started. I like to think of the things I do for enjoyment as jobs, in a way. It's not just my time off to relax, but it's part of my job to take in these different cultural things and think about them. It's all part of the machine! My creative work requires movie pellets, or whatever. I need to gets gems in this mobile game. It's my task. It fuels me.

A list for drawing ideas, and a miscellaneous list.

I also keep a lot of lists and notes. All the time, about everything. It makes it easier to think, and then I can go back to these and remember tiny slivers of ideas. And I like to keep timed goals for certain tasks, which I also track with customised timers.

The red dots disappear when I complete the associated time goal.

I never reach all of these goals in a single day, but it's a nice way to track my activity, and works as an extended checklist. It simply makes me feel accomplished. I am like Mario getting a new coin.

In the last week of January I spent at least six beautiful hours writing (although I'm not very consistent on using this particular timer because I flip-flop a bit on what counts as writing).

All this to say that I kind of consider my blog a weird inbetween thing. It's more solidly in the fun zone, not the work zone, but it's certainly practice for work. I'm doing the same thing as my work, but in a looser, more casual way where it essentially doesn't matter at all what I say or do. It's free expression with no real consideration for an audience or for the merit or appeal of what I'm writing or showing. It's my messy sketchbook. And so, this is the first thing I'm doing today (after breakfast and watching an episode of The Pitt). Saying almost nothing. But it feels so right.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch a movie. It's important. 

***

Apps I use, in order of appearance:

• Loop Habit Tracker
• Google Tasks
• Google Keep
• Simple Time Tracker 

Don't Eat Ramen at Harrods

London has always struck me as a strange city. This could be largely the hateful bias of being born here (there is insurmountable joy to be found in mocking your own home), but it always seemed so much more segmented than other major cities.

A street in Kensington.

There's central London in all its particular flavours. The now-drowned gothic and alternative market in Camden that my friends would all make the trip to on weekends because we needed to see five thousand Slipknot hoodies, peruse a dark-coloured tutu collection, and marvel at the tantalising blacklight in Cyberdog. The red brick buildings and high street brimming with monotone designer goods in Chelsea. The crunchy concrete of the Barbican.

The Michelin Man was actually born here in the Michelin Building.

And then there's the truest London of all - the suburban sprawl, the looming presence of a Wetherspoons, and a stark brown brick emptiness. Sometimes, you are just too far from a Tesco to be really happy. London may have an excellent bus network, but there is something to be said about the sheer dullness of having to take an hour and a half to visit a friend who lives in London when you are already in London. It's an unavoidable downside to living in a big city, yes, but the big aesthetic and infrastructural differences borough by borough often bring the feel of the whole place down to its lowest common denominator.

What I'm saying is, Tulse Hill is not real, and you shouldn't go there.

But sometimes it's nice to enter central London, to pretend you are the kind of person who doesn't wince at paying £9 for a pint of beer, and to say: wow, a red telephone box. 

Go on, make a call.

So I had ramen at Harrods the other day, which was about £30, and good, but not amazing. The broth was a little bit thin and watery for my taste, but there were two delicious eggs in there, at least. The service, though, was pretty bad. When everyone is sitting at a circular bar around the staff, you'd think service would be attentive and snappy, because they can all really see you, but no, not really. It took a while to get a glass of water at the start of the meal, and that pretty much set the tone.

Being in the pretty dining hall and looking up at the mosaics of birds was nice, but I probably wouldn't go back. It's just a one-time thing. Instead, there's a Greene King pub down the road called The Bunch of Grapes. The fishcakes there are good. I might go there. It was nice and empty when I ate the fishcakes, which really enhanced my enjoyment. A woman should be as close to alone as possible to enjoy her fishcakes.

Me holding some swim shorts. Don't ask any questions please.

The Pitt is Sensational

Rejoice, injury lovers, for we have been blessed with new episodes of The Pitt, and I for one am glad to have the opportunity to see many more bleeding body parts. Yay!

He's back!

Last year I was dazzled and amazed by The Pitt's first season. The ensemble cast are a gorgeous tapestry of personalities, smirking with knowing mirth and/or shaking with nerves. I love the autistic one, Dr. King, an utterly charming geek. I love Dana, the sarcastic yet warm charge nurse. I love Javadi, her eyes wide with fear or narrowed in judgement at all times. I love them all.

Not that there are a lot to choose from, but she is easily my favourite autistic character of all time.

This show was, I thought then, maybe the best-paced TV show I'd ever seen. Each episode covers an hour of the shift, and so the season takes us, minute by minute, through a full twenty-four hours in the ER, and it goes at a breakneck pace.

The sense of urgency and very particular time management is conveyed through extremely tight scenario writing here, and it's impressive. We see the doctors and nurses weave through escalating emergencies and deaths and other surprises with a determined, relentless, unstoppable energy. Triage is an insane, twisted spider web, and our little flies are working themselves loose over and over again. It's incredible.

There are some wonderfully shocking moments that come from both excellent, surprising writing that keeps the viewer on their toes, and perfectly placed visual effects that unceremoniously show you the nasty conditions being dealt with. While much of this is gory and uncomfortable, I love how un-sensational it tends to feel. The human body is a marvel, in all its bloody, pulsing glory.

You are not gonna wanna open up that cast.

All of this great stuff continues into the second season, where we have yet another day to get through. It's main man Robby's last day before a fun little trip, and it's the fourth of July baby!!!! It's America's special day. Anything could happen.

What I immediately love is the way this season crafts the feeling of reunion. Some time has passed in-universe since that awful day that was the first season, and so we see that Whitaker has grown confident and can now instruct a new little man, his own little puppy dog, in the art of being a real, actual doctor.

Whitaker also has the tender start of a mullet forming. Powerful development.

We also see that Langdon's back after a long absence and stint in rehab, and can reunite with his bestie, King.

Aww.

The sense of that time having passed and the dynamics having shifted slightly in the absence of the audience is so well done - it really feels like getting to see old friends after having been away for a while.

And we have, as expected, some horrifying and downright spooky patient issues. I will say nothing more than that there is a penis draining. And it is so horrible. And so perfect.

Pure fear.

Babes in Toyland (1934) is a Mess

After watching the 1990s and 1960s versions of Babes in Toyland, I had to finally take myself to the source. Well, the first film, that is. All of these evil movies are based on a 1903 operetta. But we shall not speak of this.

This first filmed version is a Laurel and Hardy venture, and I do generally like their scenes the most. I'm probably the first person to say this, but Laurel and Hardy have a pretty entertaining dynamic going on. They should do more stuff as a duo, I reckon.

These guys are funny.

I was initially struck by the beauty of some of the sequences. There are some really impressive sets and beautifully lit shots. We get to see multiple sheep-woman hugs. Because the main woman in this version of the tale is Little Bo Peep. And she loves her sheep.

Aww.

We also see an electric performance by Henry Brandon, who plays this movie's Barnaby, the evil top hat man. He gives the role a wide-eyed pantomime quality, and he does it so well. This man is REACTING. I love him.

I could fix him. With a hammer.

So, for the first half of the movie, I was pretty into it. I felt a bit more connected to the very basic romance. A guy puts Bo Peep in the stocks and then kisses her, it's all very normal stuff. She loves her sheep, and so I support whatever other stuff she wants to do.

Sheep.

The second half, however, devolves into impenetrable nonsense. Mickey Mouse throws a brick at a cat's head. Monkey men get released. It's a whole thing.

The innocent, normal cat.

MICKEY NO!

And I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "Lilly, that sounds amazing". Well, listen, some of it is thrilling. I can't deny that I love to see Mickey Mouse attack. But sadly, chaos too can become boring, and this is very much the case here. You're watching scenes of constant screaming by the end, and it turns into a sludge. It's like watching thirty minutes of white noise and racing blobs. What's going on here? I don't know, I stopped paying attention. There's one thousand monkey men in the city. Are they the titular babes? Are the monkey men the babes?

Sure. Whatever.

Barnaby and his monkey boys.

One monkey man out of five. 

★☆☆☆☆ 

A Very Special Book: Hollow Inside by Asako Otani

I joined NetGalley recently, which is a really cool website where you can request Advance Reader Copies of books in exchange for reviews. Since I've been both reading a lot more since late last year, and writing a lot more since committing to my beautiful blog at the beginning of January, I thought, yes, this is my time to get really into reviewing books.

Of course, the prospect of a delicious new book that isn't released to the public yet also whet my appetite. I need those juicy, secret books. I need to be special and ahead of the curve. As a sidenote, I just looked up where the word "whet" comes from, because I realised I had no idea, and it turns out it comes from knife sharpening. You know, like a whetstone - what you whet your wheapon whith. You get it. Very good.

The first ARC (this is techno-speak for Advanced Reader Copy, as mentioned above) I picked up from NetGalley was this enticing, short Japanese debut novel - Hollow Inside, by Asako Otani. It's out now in the UK, and won't be published in the USA until the 5th of May, but I read it January. Because I'm very special.

I chose it partly because this cover spoke to me - the open dog head with two little people inside, yes, okay, nice and sinister, slightly reminiscent of some of the promotional material for Severance - and partly because it's a brisk 112 pages. I thought I should try a short book first and get to grips with the NetGalley experience, and I'm glad I did, because I ran into my first technical mishap immediately: this book was only available as a PDF. As you probably know, reading a PDF on your phone is what we like to call "hellish". PDFs aren't formatted for that sort of the thing. So, thankfully, the length of this novella made it bearable, but in the future I will be looking for gorgeous epubs only. I have learned. I am a fighter.

Without further ado though, let's talk about the book.

 

*** 

 

FEMINISM AND PLASTIC ANIMALS. HERE WE GO. 

There's a bit of a trend at the moment for short, crunchy Japanese novels that concern themselves with pissed off and alienated women. I read Emi Yagi's Diary of a Void and loved it. I thought Convenience Store Woman was pretty cool. And here is a new entry into the canon - a novella about a middle-aged woman who moves in with another middle-aged woman, and feels kinda bad about it.

Here they are. The books.

Hirai is an office worker grappling with the subtle ways judgement manifests in her life. She worries about her mother's expectations for her romantic life, and she worries that her co-workers would think it's super weird for her to live with a female friend at her age. 

Them.

She's 38, and so the pressure she feels to have children is coming to a head. This is all expressed in a wonderfully tentative, suppressed way. Hirai's thoughts are clearly in turmoil - she doesn't WANT to get a boyfriend or have a little baby - but she can't quite accept them. Instead she lies down on her bed periodically and pretends to be dead in these frank, tiny moments of desperation.

"I let all the strength drain from my body. I gave myself over to gravity and sharpened all my awareness right up to my fingertips. I lay on the bed not moving an inch. Pretending to be dead. I sometimes did this.

I was dead. Nothing in this world had anything to do with me. I thought about the dead dogs. The dead dogs that had been doted on by their owners. They had left fake bodies in the world as figurines, and their souls were running around the other world wagging their tails. My soul joined them frolicking there."

I love these perfect little expressions of a hopeless need for escape. I love the latching on to these dogs as adequately and vividly loved. Her roommate, Suganuma, makes 3D-printed custom sculptures of people's dead dogs, and this is used as a very fun metaphor for brokenness and acceptance.

"I picked up what looked like a reject figure that was lying on the floor. It was of a chihuahua, hollow inside and surprisingly light. The threadlike filament had become tangled around its body, as though enveloping it in a spider's web."  

That's right, the book title gets namedropped. There we go! It's Hollow Inside, baby!

The book is, for the most part, very straightforward. Nothing much happens, but there are these pockets of sweetness that I found so touching. There are also some good moments of humour, and I like that often when Hirai expresses an emotion, it's kind of intense, like it needs to burst out of her. She has this incredible disgust for men, finds them so physically repulsive that she can't help but be disgusted by women who touch them, and I just love the way this is explored. She feels so trapped in heterosexual expectations that she wants to THROW UP when a man looks at her. It's so, so good. Just the sheer magnitude of this caged animal reaction to the world.

There's something special nestled into this unassuming, simple story.

Four out of five defective dogs

★★★★☆

 

I Love 1970s Tennis Anime

A while ago I watched through the 1973-74 shoujo anime series about girls' tennis, Aim for the Ace! 

I can't remember how I came across it, but something about the visual style really struck me. The long, angled faces sometimes warped to a sort of dream-like alien degree. The beautiful, blurred backgrounds in purple tones. The colourful airbrushing and paint stippling. It's a gorgeous, odd-looking show.

It centres on a vaguely tomboyish tennis player, Hiromi. She has a fluffy Donny Osmond cut, a reserved personality, and a dream - to play some tennis. We start out with her about to move up to the senior team, and follow her as she takes part in more high stakes matches and gets into more intense training.

She has a little black cat, by the way. This creature isn't particularly important, but rest assured: that cat is there.

What I love about the series is its claustrophobic intensity. At the beginning, it seems that Hiromi and her friend don't care all that much about their tennis prowess, but it quickly becomes the beautiful, sparkling jewel at the centre of Hiromi's life. An intoxicating, visceral passion expressed so vividly by the textured backgrounds and often conspicuously empty, slightly abstract locations.

A figure of great inspiration to Hiromi is Todo, the sparkling and gentle boy tennis player she admires. He is an iconic 1970s boy. He has the most luscious eyelashes in the world, thick, flowing sideburns, and bewitching, geode-like eyes. He is quiet and unassuming, statesmanlike, and a very good tennis player.

The distant intensity with which she views him is so deliciously communicated. She is always gazing at him, and he is always leaping in slow motion, a graceful gazelle of a man on the court. And so, there is an impeccable, tentative sensuality to their relationship. Nothing feels quite real, but every detail is magnified, made huge and shiny.

Balls.

I also love the way the show explores the fraught position of women's tennis, and women in tennis. There's a powerful scene in which Hiromi talks about the extreme challenge she faces in making up for her relative weaknesses in strength and size.

It's so great. You're punching the air at this point. Our girl needs to win. She deserves it.

Another moment has a coach observing Hiromi's training, and he says this:

It's such an interesting and sad look at some of the stark realities of women's sports and their dismissal, but it's also inspiring and invigorating. Here is a girl who is truly in it for the love of the game, giving it her all, pushing her body to the limit - and carving out a space for women of pure, dogged athleticism.

I just love her so much. 

 

p.s. here's a dog: