The challenges that make everything else seem easier
Adventures du jour!
New year, new perspectives. (One hopes.) Personally, I don’t do a lot of assessment for the year until February, on or about Groundhog Day/Imbolc/Candlemas. I find it more meaninful for stomach reasons, as in, about then, my stomach goes IT’S SPRING EAT ALL THE VEGGIES EVERYTHING IS NEWWWWWW AND POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!!!
I will mention that I didn’t get a lot of fiction reading done this year but that I was one of the top 1% of readers on Webtoon. Aiy! That doesn’t even count the reading I did for a bunch of web comics that aren’t officially available in English yet.
I can’t tell you my favorite novels of the year (I didn’t read that many), but my favorite web comics from this year are:
Lore Olympus, Rachel Smythe. Fantasy, romance, drama. 1920s/2020s-flavored Greek myths of Hades. Love, families, sweetness, trauma. If you’re only gonna take one suggestion, pick this one. Available Webtoons. Ongoing.
Anything and everything by creator Ilkwon Ha. I’d start with The Sound of Magic. The art looks wonky and puerile. There’s a reason for that. These series are breathtakingly good, ranging from political commentary to different forms of love to coping with death–from the blackest despair to the lightest joy. Content warning on Duty after School for GORE; trigger warning on Taste of Illness for depression/suicide. Available on Webtoons. Complete.
Perfect Buddy, by Lash and Daki. This is an office romance smut comedy, crafted with mischievously meticulous care that swings from sex comedy to despair to joy in a heartbeat. Angry black cat versus golden retriever: fight! It has a very Mad Men-meets-Moebius aesthetic. Content warning: explicit gay sex. Mostly the naughty bits are whited out (although that doesn’t make things less suggestive, really). Available on Tappytoon. Ongoing.
(Note: “smut” here means a genre where the sex is explicit but doesn’t necessarily occupy the greater portion of each episode. In web comics land, these tend to be stories-that-feature-sex versus sex-with-plot-glue. Explore at your own risk, though!)
I read a TON of others that I loved. Hit me up if you want additional, or more focused, recommendations. Or just wanna babble about YOUR favorites.
One of the things that I’ve really enjoyed about reading all these web comics is the way each one of them is individually all over the damn place. The novels I’d been reading had a tendency to stick a genre and stay with it. I’m really enjoying how the serial format gives space (and the need, really) to vary in tone from episode to episode. The format is soap opera for nerds, really. In addition, each is a masterclass on pacing, character, setting, plot twists. Highly recommend, as your tastes allow.
I also watched Yuri!!! on ICE this year, probably at least a dozen times through all told. I happened to run into it just as I was getting ready to go to a romance-related writing workshop. I went, “THIS IS A SERIOUSLY MESSED UP ROMANTIC PLOT TWIST I CAN GET BEHIND” and picked the whole series–lovingly–apart. I’ve come to recognize that not everyone who has seen it loves it as much as I do, but this boggles my mind. Romantic sports comedy about professional ice skating, food as erotic energy (hahahaha), and failing so fast that it looks like success. Bonus: nice butts. Highly recommend.
Favorite movies were Everything Everywhere All at Once (and Swiss Army Man, by the same silly and deep directors!), and Bones and All, a cannibal love story.
I’m going to hazard a guess that LaVyrle Spencer’s novel Bitter Sweet is going to be one of my favorite books of all time, but I continue reading it at a snail’s pace. The writing is soooo goood.
Favorite new-to-me music: Hozier. I hadn’t really listened to his stuff past the one that was all over the radio for a while (“Take Me to Church”), but a friend made me listen to another one, and now I’m obsessed, slowly processing one song after another.–I’ve been trying to post one unique song per day over the last months to help encourage me listen to more new music. It’s nice.
…
The last few days have been tied up with writing a short story for an anthology/class assignment. I finished it by the deadline (yay!), sent it, then immediately started second-guessing it. I’m going to leave it alone until after I get word whether the editor wants it or not.
These last three stories, all written after confronting the horrible bout of jealousy I hit after starting up the LaVyrle Spencer (like, “I should just quit being a writer” levels of jealousy), have been both amazing and draining to write. Each of them has made me take personal risks on a level I wasn’t expecting. Not quite “therapy stories” (as the big WIP is a “therapy story”), but close. As I finished each of them, I went, “I may get into trouble over this. But…worth it.” It’s funny. None of these stories push boundaries to the same level that previous things I’ve written do. (Nobody gets eaten or exploded, for example.) But I’m *far* more nervous about them.
Photos: I was looking for craft supplies and got into a box with a bunch of photos in it and posted a bunch yesterday.–This turned out to be a help with the story, so I can’t even call it a waste of time regarding the writing.
The shocking thing, though, was seeing how much my face had changed while I was with the ex. I ran into a bunch of photos from the wedding. I didn’t post any but I didn’t throw them out, either. The pictures of myself that I posted from high school were taken while I was a) working at the nursing home and literally washing dead bodies and cleaning up all kinds of mess; b) panicking about hustling for scholarships and money because Mom said something about not paying for my college; c) getting screamed at for being “too smart for my own good” and “always slouching!” But I looked happy. With the ex, though, I *did* slouch and my face slowly froze into a series of fake smiles. It was already happening by the wedding. He was already not looking at me in *any* of the pictures except the ones where he was required to for the ceremony.
People have been telling me I look good lately. To me, what I look like is I’m getting my own face and body back. Twenty-plus years later, but hey. Some people never do.
Other stuff:
I figured out how to do something new with my torso (I don’t know if there’s a name for it? But moving loci of attention, like, “Now I focus on hips for this song. Now I focus on these two spots on my ribcage. Now I focus on shoulder blades.” Anyway: sore. I’m not sure why I’m surprised. Knee has been on/off bothering me, but not as badly as before. Legs remain more stable.
I got yoga socks and danced in them; they don’t solve All the Problems but they’re very nice. I’m trying to be gentle with them so I don’t strain the knee. I’m used to being able to pivot and spin on the slippery socks and could probably screw something up pretty easily if I try to spin with all my weight and my foot can’t follow.
I made bangers and mash (well, brats and mash) with onion gravy on NYE, then lefse last night. A friend mentioned the idea of a misogi challenge, that is, something difficult that one does once a year in order to put everything else you do into perspective.–Misogi is a ritual where you stand under a waterfall to purify you of your sins, in Shinto. The challenge is the secular version or something.
Anyway: I used to do a lot of over-the-top cooking challenges until the ex decided they were inconvenient and he was done tolerating them, a la “why are you spending so much time on something that isn’t me? and inviting people into my house?”
Making lefse: totally pointless. Took two days, two meals, filled up the fridge, I dirtied every dish in the kitchen (twice), they turned out too thick but yummy (uh huh huh huh huh) and I used up too much energy doing it WHILE I was on deadline.
Ray liked ’em. I put curry powder in the butter: YUM.
Challenge complete.
Skinny and eighteen!
