Notes and queries (the baby's got back edition):

[raven]

I'm in bed, dear flist. I have spent fourteen of the last twenty-four hours in it, and then there was a headache starting - where is the great literature surrounding headaches, answer, nowhere, they are such a profoundly unromantic affliction - and so here I am again, with my coffee and my freshly-painted nails and my determination to do nothing productive ever again.

Notes and queries:

1. It was a nicely low-key homecoming. The fastest Atlantic crossing I have ever made - five and a half hours on the outside, touching down in Shannon in a deserted rainy 6am, and onwards from there. The ground staff were lovely, getting me through immigration and to my connection with a mixture of efficiency and whatever the noun form of "lackadaiscal" is; I even had a few minutes to spare to have a very unenlightening conversation with a nice lady from the Irish Office of National Statistics. ("So, where was your last place of residence?" / "Er, New York, in the United States." / "So you're on an American passport?" / "Er, no, British." / "And how long have you been staying in Ireland?" / "...about twenty minutes.")

Today I have been food shopping. I bought a box of raspberries, a box of local blackberries, a Lancashire-grown cauliflower, two pints of milk, cereal, coffee, brown bread and Wensleydale cheese with bits of apricot in it. I didn't want to cry once. It was refreshing. That said, I look the wrong way when I cross the street. (I also don't hit light switches hard enough, any more. It's a thing, apparently.)

2. I also didn't notice until this morning that there was a thread for me on littlebutfierce's love meme! Thank you, lovely anons and named people! You're very sweet, and you've cheered me up thoroughly.

3. So, I'm lying in bed again, watching Sapphire & Steel and enjoying it rather a lot. (I'd never seen it; only, I've been rewatching Man From U.N.C.L.E a bit recently, and my dad watches NCIS, cue me exclaiming delightedly, "It's the cute Russian! Only he got old!", and thought I'd make up the set.) So, yes, Sapphire & Steel, and it's so delightfully creepy and kind of ridiculous and I really like it. Where is all the fucked-up telepathic Sapphire/Steel on the internet. Where is it. Also, how so creepy on what is clearly a budget of £12.50 per episode. Wow.

4. The other thing I am doing while lying in bed is writing, or trying to write. As predicted, my urge to write continuously did correlate with having no time at all to do it in; now I have time to finish the current story, I've been flumped horizontal watching Sapphire & Steel instead. I'm also going to catch up with Doctor Who today! Very excited about that episode y'all loved a few weeks back that I never saw. First, pirates, then that.

But speaking of writing, my dear tragic_mathematics is presiding over fic_promptly this week and every one of her themes and example prompts so far may as well have been prefixed with "Iona, this one's for you". Today's theme is "quotidian", which I completely love as an idea (I wrote "In Service" a couple of years back entirely for that theme, but there've been lots that touch on it) and yesterday's was "documentation", and how much I love that has been well.... documented, aha, I am so funny, Iona shut up. But, yes, stories made entirely up of, I don't know, coffee shop receipts, notes, messages stuck to the fridge, whatever, I love those. If my brain were not so completely scraped out from the inside I would be writing the hell out of both sets of prompts. I may yet.

5. ...and finally. A quick housekeeping note. For those of you who had my 607 cellphone number - it is now deceased and no more, alas. I have returned to the UK mobile number ending in -8077 that a lot of you already have. Same number, but different phone - with some kicking and screaming, I have joined the brushed-metal revolution and have an iPhone, and so far I rather love it. What apps do I really, really need? (I don't really do games, but am open to persuasion.) So far I've got iBooks, and am slowly putting what feels like most of the AO3 on it; otherwise, I have a Twitter app and that's about it. Recommendations appreciated.

Mmm. Bed.

Comments

[toft]

Well done on your crossing! Enjoy your bed and your rasberries and cheese! You deserve them mightily.

[raven]

Thank you very much, my dear!

[philomytha]

Wensleydale with apricots is yum. Also, you are reminding me that I need to watch Man From UNCLE to see not-Illyan running around having spy adventures.

And fic_promptly is great! I have approximately fifty open tabs with prompts from there that I want to write sometime, though the likelihood of me actually writing most of them is pretty low.

[raven]

Illya! <333! The resemblance is so evident and so totally endearing I have trouble saying anything about it but "<333!" And, I confess, it might be part of the reason I was doing the rewatch. :)

fic_promptly is such a delight. I really need to write something for it, even if it's 100 words.

[isis]

The greatest American writer has written on headaches!

Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment; but when relief begins, the unexpired remainder is worth four dollars a minute.

(Mark Twain)

[raven]

Awww! I suppose if anyone did, it would be him. :)

[bibliotropic]

Welcome home! :)

I think the noun form of lackadaisical should be lackadaisy. I really wish I had a daisy! Or lackadaise... I am very alert! Hmm... that's kind of the opposite.

I am so glad you are enjoying the themes and prompts! I worried a bit about "quotidian," because it was something that made sense in my head, but seemed so, well, quotidian on the screen. I've been thinking of this prompt in relation to how it feels to come home after a long time away or to arrive in a new place and find that even small, insignificant-seeming, everyday things are strange, suddenly.

[raven]

Hellooo! I am loving them and have half a dozen open in tabs to write sometime. :) And that prompt grabbed me too, especially now - now that I am hyper-aware which way to look when I cross the street, and the font on the roadsigns, and the accents of people around me, and how much to tip, and other dozens of inconsequential things that are now strange.

[thingswithwings]

Of all the things in this post, I choose to comment on light switches.

Because I have noticed this too: European light switches: harder to flick than North American ones! WHY IS THAT. Is it because people who come to the Americas are promised a life in a New Land of milk and honey, or soy milk and agave if they're vegan? And because easier-to-flick light switches were the only actual "easy livin'" follow-through that could actually be provided? Is it because Europeans have to build up those important second-joint-on-left-forefinger muscles? ANYWAY IT IS A DIFFERENCE.

[raven]

A valid choice, my friend. And it is SO TRUE, there is a difference! Also I read a tonne of novels when I was younger that mentioned "flicking" light switches, and always wondered about that. I mean, if you flick a light switch nothing happens. You have to press it. And now I am inconsequentially flicking them and cursing the darkness. It all makes sense now.

[livrelibre]

And now I have Sir Mix-a-lot stuck in my head! Glad you got back safely and are getting some rest and relaxation (and hopefully no headache soon).

[tau_sigma]

Hello! Congratulations on being back; bed is a good place to be, I hope you enjoy it. *g*

You have also helpfully reminded me that I want to re-watch Man from UNCLE, and now I know where to find it, hooray! I may end up finding Sapphire and Steel, too; I have no idea what the premise is, but I will watch anything with David McCallum in it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* Somehow I think you will love Sapphire & Steel (it's all on youtube). David McCallum and Joanna Lumley are Sapphire and Steel, immensely mysterious brooding non-human operatives who run around fixing problems with time and having unresolved sexual tension in a creepy fashion. It's like old-skool Who as though it were written by Moffatt and crossed with The Twilight Zone.

[balthaser.livejournal.com]

You should get Instagram if you at all like taking pictures. It's very good, if only to see other peoples pictures. I'm following Jamie Oliver & his kids are adorable!

Other than that, I have Bubble Bust, Bejewelled, Paper Toss & Coin Dozer for games because they're not much thinking required. There's Words With Friends if you like scrabble which I would think you'd be very good at.

You can get Kindle for the iPhone which I liked a bit better than iBooks mainly because you can download stuff free from Amazon & I'm not really sure how iBooks works.

I'd suggest downloading one of the free torch apps because they're just useful to have. I have iTorch4. Other than that I have the Sainsbury's app (because I'm that sad), & Absolute 80's because it's amazing & also links you to the rest of the Absolute radio channels.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this! I nabbed the torch one, it's great. And I'm really tempted by Bejewelled, but I'd waste so much time...

[balthaser.livejournal.com]

I mostly just went on the app store and looked through all their recommended apps and the free apps and downloaded stuff that looked vaguely interesting & then deleted the ones I didn't like.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I wholeheartedly support your determination to do nothing productive ever again. Welcome home, and enjoy your bed.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you, my dear! I won't ask how it's going. Many good wishes, instead, and here's to it being over soon!

[minutia-r.livejournal.com]

Lackadaisy, I think.

And while I haven't seen Sapphire and Steel myself, I have an acquaintance who was massively into it a few years back and started a community for it, which still seems to be active: sapphirensteel

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you kindly!

[fyrdrakken]

There was a time years ago where there was a love meme and I wound up on it and had no idea until I saw my username scroll down the screen in a meta fanvid some years after the fact.

Congrats on being home and lying around catching up on TV!