1609: catch the drift like japanese cars

Week before this was just very low-energy so I didn't really even have the juice for writing :( Not necessarily low mood most of the time, thankfully, just low energy, and I'm trying to be a bit less "just grind through it" when it comes to that sort of thing and give myself a bit of a break. That has proven a good idea so far!

Throughput

• Went to the Hope and Ruin for Pancake Day; their vegan pancakes were maybe the best pancakes I've ever had.
• Went to Planet India for Valentine's Day; the food was splendid as always and there were a bunch of posh old folks on the table next to us talking about "Injuh" in a very amusing fashion.
• I had a couple of very interesting conversations with some pals, both of which in some way revolved around relationship to work, how it can be difficult to find good working patterns and how taking a break can be really tricky, which were really useful for clarifying my thinking around that stuff.
• Last year I tried to reinstitute a university tradition of fortnightly friend group low-key get-togethers, with mixed success (it turns out that being in your late 20s/early 30s is busier than being in university!) but we had our first one this year at Kat and Josef's and it was really wonderful; the ideal of a "just wander around and have a chat to folks" kinda thing.
• I went to the Corponation launch party, a game developed by friends of the blog Sam and Vicki. Haven't had the chance to play it yet, but the game looks sick, I'm so made up for them–they got mentioned in PC Gamer and The Guardian (and The Seagull 😎)!
• First D&D session in a while; It looks like we might be getting a ship which I feel like is what we've been working toward this whole time (nearly a year 😅)
• Got myself a nice new notebook for diarising and morning pages. It's orange and has some really nice paper stock :)

Output

• I wrote something about Librivox.
• I wrote a follow-up on my (so far relatively successful) attempts to cure my eczema.
• I wrote something about how Miss Congeniality made me feel like a targeted individual.

Input

• I've been watching a lot of Driving Japan videos, which really help me turn my brain off. I really love seeing all the little kei cars, but I hate the fact that so many of the toll barriers seem to work on numberplate recognition or something; you just drive at them full pelt and they raise at the last minute 😖
• Finished The Cult Of Smart, Trust The Plan and No Bad Parts in a burst of reading over the weekend. All of them good in different ways, and all of them basically coming up with similar diagnoses: you need to fix things at a society-wide level to fix some personal-level issues.
• Also reading Peter Watts' Sunflower short stories. Watts is one of my favourite writers—Blindsight might be in my top five all-time books—but man, he doesn't half write some depressing stuff.
• Gilmore Girls continues; I think Rory might end up being the bad guy in the final evaluation y'know.
• CM was watching the new Netflix adapatation of One Day and I was in the room for at least some of it; very sad, but nice to see Tim McInnerny is still around.
• We went to the Hove Museum and took in some Cow Art which was very charming. The feedback board had a lot of angry notes from children about the Wizard's Attic being closed.

Keep it real! Over and out.