I enjoy reading monthly updates from people I follow (via RSS), they’re always so interesting. So I figured I’d try writing my own. It’ll be good to 1) get me into a regular writing cadence (I want to write more, here and elsewhere, this year), and 2) maybe someone will find mine interesting (jk I don’t think people read this blog). Anyways, let’s give this a try!

general

May’s gone by fast; not as fast as April went, but still pretty fast. The warmer weather has been a bit more consistent, but still some cold days here and there. Finally been able to get out and ride along the lakefront a bit. The first ride was cold and windy, second ride was warm and windy. We’re trending in the right direction, just would be nice now if the wind can die down a bit.

using

I did fully finish that Zebra Sarasa from last month. Fighting really hard not to pick up another to replace it, I’m trying hard to whittle down my pen arsenal a bit more. I did pick up a Pentel Energel Needle-point in red, and that’s been a revelation. I remember Energels from years (decades?…) ago and not enjoying them, but now they are fantastic. Like, instant drying, even with a 0.7 width. Great for this lefty. Only downside is it isn’t waterproof, but there’s got to be some trade-off, right?

Stationery kick is still going strong. It’s helping me get lots of journaling in, because that’s a great excuse to write with a fountain pen. Trying to take more notes on paper at work too - there’s just something so much more reliable and low friction to writing by hand rather than keeping a digital work log up to date. Helps me think through some problems better too.

One of my Field Notes had an incident with a body of water. It’s all warped and crinkly, but it dried out and I can still write in it, so we’re good to go. The incident occurred after only like 4 pages, so I didn’t lose much writing (some of the ink wasn’t water-proof), but I’ve got the majority of the notebook to finish whilst a little wonky. Unimaginably, this was the first time I got a Field Notes seriously wet.

I’ve been toying around with Kakoune a bit. It seems neat, I like the idea of flipping the verb-noun order of (n)vim to selection first then action of kakoune. It’s also much more barebones in terms of plugins, which I think might be a plus?

reading

The Crying of Lot 49 was a wild ride, and I don’t think I was fully prepared for it. It was very good and I think I need to give it another read through sometime, but need to give it a bit of time before I contemplate Tristero again.

How to Cheat Your Own Death was a nice change of pace after Lot 49. Cosy, English, murder. I think it slots in at second best in the series so far, How to Solve Your Own Murder is at the top and I think it will remain there. As the first in the series it had a certain magic / novelty about it, and its hard to beat in the follow ups.

https://30u30.fyi/ always good to keep the fraudsters honest.

watching

(feels like there’s a lot here this month, maybe some of this actually happened last month too?)

Young Sherlock was good, but it feels like whenever they adapt Sherlock Holmes for TV/film, they need to make him an action hero? But that’s not really what he was - an English gentleman, who was clever and addicted to opium. But this was based on a different book series by a different author, so this might be in line with that?

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast was ok. I got what it was going for but I think it missed a bit. But I also think maybe black comedies aren’t really my thing, so maybe it was better than I give it credit for, just not for me.

The Count of Monte Cristo was excellent. I haven’t read the novel (yet!), so I can’t vouch for how true to the original it was. Surely they left some stuff out - you can’t condense 1,200 pages into 8 hour long episodes. But it was great, riveting, one of my favorite shows this year (though it came out earlier). And it has edges - since it’s based on a book, this is it; no sequel, no extending and running it into the ground. 1 series, and that’s it. And what a glorious series it was.

Brokenwood Mysteries finished series 12. Maybe not the best season, but still entertaining. Got us worried for a second that maybe this could be the final series, but I think we’ll get another one.

listening

Kind of a down month on music I think. Just not listening as much - silence has been nice.

MONO (from Japan) has been on repeat a bit though. Watched a couple of live sets and was transported back to when I saw them last year (opening for Alcest).