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Mar. 16th, 2020 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenI had a lovely weekend, and in these anxiety-mandatory times, feel quite guilty about having done so? Never mind. I was supposed to be in Dublin and ended up in Bowness on Windermere in the south Lakes. It's savagely cold and quite lovely. I am on my way back to London now and wish I weren't.
This is the first time in my memory that something has happened in the world that affects everyone I know, everywhere. I was up north this weekend partly because one of my uncles from Australia was visiting; he's trying to rearrange his flights to best accommodate the whole thing where he has to self-isolate for 14 days on his return. My various relations in India are coping with closed schools. My cousin-in-America has cancelled an engagement party this weekend. (I'm now selfishly glad I decided not to go - even if it had gone ahead I wouldn't have been able to enter the US.) It has the flipside of course that there's no one you can talk to who isn't affected, so there's no one who can be an external listening ear.
* Lots and lots of things cancelled. I was supposed to be in Dublin this weekend; I was supposed to be appearing at a literary festival in June; whether Vidukon will happen is in doubt. I may not go to Skye at the end of the month. (If I don't, I'll go to work rather than keeping the leave. It seems better to get on with things.)
* I lived in a state of imminent emergency for two years. In some ways, that makes this easier; in some ways it just makes me tired. I think I will volunteer for out-of-hours coronavirus shifts, at least a couple here and there? I did the Brexit training, after all, and I'm at least a public lawyer who can do something. As a general thing work is proceeding as usual. We had a brief kerfuffle last week when it turned out someone who was a confirmed case had attended a meeting with some of the departmental lawyers. The place was deep-cleaned and things marched on as ever. I'm kind of grateful, really. Like every central government department, it's set up for remote working and flexible working as a matter of course and in times like this reaps the dividend.
*There are a lot of unfortunate connotations to people constantly describing other people as "disgusting". Every time I have been described that way before, it was because I'm brown and other people are white. It's not always about handwashing; some bodies are ipso facto repulsive. This, oddly, is my least favourite part of the whole thing. It turns out I react very strongly to human beings being reduced to disease vectors. (From a slightly more academic perspective, I also did a twitter thread about reducing human beings to disease vectors.) Deeply unsexy as ever to be concerned with the rule of law, but there you are.)
* Self-isolation for seven or fourteen days would be the worst possible thing for bipolar disorder. I'm trying not to think about that too much. Another minor fear: cluster headache. In some ways it's not a big deal, as it's not one of those things that would be affected one way or the other by self-isolation or flu, and while having to go without treatment would be unpleasant it would just be a matter of enduring it. The difficulty is that mid-March is exactly the right time for onset, if it's going to happen this year.
I read a lot while I was in the Lakes! If these trying times continue much longer, I think I shall make a point of writing up proper reviews of everything I read and pushing people at things I think they might like. I just read a 1940s murder mystery called Smallbone Deceased, about a firm of somewhat-eccentric London solicitors who find a dead guy in one of their deed boxes. I read it because I thought it would be moderately diverting and it turned out to be utterly delightful. I also read a short novella - Just In Case, Chrissie Manby - which killed a pleasant hour with its amazing low-stakes plot. (Rosie and Clare are twins. One of them is straitlaced, rigid, uncompromising; the other is a drippy hippie who likes the booze a bit much. On their way to a wedding and an overseas conference respectively, they accidentally SWAP SUITCASES. Gasp.) And now I'm on Turning Darkness Into Light, by Marie Brennan, which is natural history with dragons. it's a very enjoyable book so far despite the fact that nothing at all has happened.
The best book I've read just recently though is The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley, the sequel to The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. It's so good I'm actually kind of wordless about it. It's complex and detailed and beautifully written and just, devastating. I read most of it in a weekend and then had a good old-fashioned book hangover.
edit I don't know why my irrepressible family have decided the Hindi for "coronavirus" is "koroni", but I'm into it.
This is the first time in my memory that something has happened in the world that affects everyone I know, everywhere. I was up north this weekend partly because one of my uncles from Australia was visiting; he's trying to rearrange his flights to best accommodate the whole thing where he has to self-isolate for 14 days on his return. My various relations in India are coping with closed schools. My cousin-in-America has cancelled an engagement party this weekend. (I'm now selfishly glad I decided not to go - even if it had gone ahead I wouldn't have been able to enter the US.) It has the flipside of course that there's no one you can talk to who isn't affected, so there's no one who can be an external listening ear.
* Lots and lots of things cancelled. I was supposed to be in Dublin this weekend; I was supposed to be appearing at a literary festival in June; whether Vidukon will happen is in doubt. I may not go to Skye at the end of the month. (If I don't, I'll go to work rather than keeping the leave. It seems better to get on with things.)
* I lived in a state of imminent emergency for two years. In some ways, that makes this easier; in some ways it just makes me tired. I think I will volunteer for out-of-hours coronavirus shifts, at least a couple here and there? I did the Brexit training, after all, and I'm at least a public lawyer who can do something. As a general thing work is proceeding as usual. We had a brief kerfuffle last week when it turned out someone who was a confirmed case had attended a meeting with some of the departmental lawyers. The place was deep-cleaned and things marched on as ever. I'm kind of grateful, really. Like every central government department, it's set up for remote working and flexible working as a matter of course and in times like this reaps the dividend.
*There are a lot of unfortunate connotations to people constantly describing other people as "disgusting". Every time I have been described that way before, it was because I'm brown and other people are white. It's not always about handwashing; some bodies are ipso facto repulsive. This, oddly, is my least favourite part of the whole thing. It turns out I react very strongly to human beings being reduced to disease vectors. (From a slightly more academic perspective, I also did a twitter thread about reducing human beings to disease vectors.) Deeply unsexy as ever to be concerned with the rule of law, but there you are.)
* Self-isolation for seven or fourteen days would be the worst possible thing for bipolar disorder. I'm trying not to think about that too much. Another minor fear: cluster headache. In some ways it's not a big deal, as it's not one of those things that would be affected one way or the other by self-isolation or flu, and while having to go without treatment would be unpleasant it would just be a matter of enduring it. The difficulty is that mid-March is exactly the right time for onset, if it's going to happen this year.
I read a lot while I was in the Lakes! If these trying times continue much longer, I think I shall make a point of writing up proper reviews of everything I read and pushing people at things I think they might like. I just read a 1940s murder mystery called Smallbone Deceased, about a firm of somewhat-eccentric London solicitors who find a dead guy in one of their deed boxes. I read it because I thought it would be moderately diverting and it turned out to be utterly delightful. I also read a short novella - Just In Case, Chrissie Manby - which killed a pleasant hour with its amazing low-stakes plot. (Rosie and Clare are twins. One of them is straitlaced, rigid, uncompromising; the other is a drippy hippie who likes the booze a bit much. On their way to a wedding and an overseas conference respectively, they accidentally SWAP SUITCASES. Gasp.) And now I'm on Turning Darkness Into Light, by Marie Brennan, which is natural history with dragons. it's a very enjoyable book so far despite the fact that nothing at all has happened.
The best book I've read just recently though is The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley, the sequel to The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. It's so good I'm actually kind of wordless about it. It's complex and detailed and beautifully written and just, devastating. I read most of it in a weekend and then had a good old-fashioned book hangover.
edit I don't know why my irrepressible family have decided the Hindi for "coronavirus" is "koroni", but I'm into it.
no subject
on 2020-03-16 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2020-03-16 06:37 pm (UTC)GIVE CANTRIP SILK
on 2020-03-16 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2020-03-16 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2020-03-16 08:28 pm (UTC)Thank you for continuing book recs. You cost me lots of money, but it’s always worth it.
no subject
on 2020-03-16 08:31 pm (UTC)Man, it is surreal.
Funny how despite the necessary isolations we're all going through, I feel more connected than ever to every human being who is going through the same things that I am.
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on 2020-03-16 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
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on 2020-03-17 12:02 am (UTC)Looking up Smallbone Deceased RIGHT NOW.
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