in lieu of a flowering branch
this post brought to you by the local long weekend, and the tree in my backyard that i somehow forgot or have in 8 years never appreciated was this good at spring! intoxicated! i lay outside under it and read all afternoon, i think i forgot that was a thing i could even do!
monday, may 18, 2026 ~ 6pm
(post title brought to you by this pablo neruda poem, which i learned via this choir piece we performed in... 2023 i think, and that has stuck with me ever since).
reading spent this afternoon finishing @finnlongman's the wolf and his king (excuse the tag!) and feeling so fulfilled and gratified by everything they chose to do with that retelling. i know and have taught the original marie de france lai a few times now, so a lot of my experience of reading was spent wondering 'okay but when is that going to happen? how are we going to do xyz??' and then being relieved with the way it turned out. i was so on edge for it to end...some other way, but then it ended like it does, which felt like a gift. lovely stuff. i spent the end of last week and some of saturday at the Big medievalist conference, and this was the cherry on top of an overall fulfilling week--i'm really pleased and proud to be around the people i am, who are doing and making and writing the beautiful things that they are.
also outside this afternoon i got to start chad harbach's the art of fielding, which will earn its own post when i've finished it and can place it alongside the other baseball novel i'm reading rn, but this is a note to say that at least the first five chapters have lived up to my loyalty in toting this hardcover book around for years looking for the right time to actually read it-- i laughed out loud with delight multiple times, like, at least four.
listening several new album drops that i'm excited about, the most recent being MUNA, but the most long-standing of the recent albums on repeat is of course florence + the machine.
obsessed with buzzkiller primarily for the melody and the lyrics, obsessed with old religion primarily for the bass line and the chorus. i only play certain albums and tracks on repeat, it's not typical for me (i found this out with the spotify anniversary data that let me know i'd listened to 30k individual songs since 2011, and none of them more than 100 times in total), so the fact that i have not moved on from these two is the height of complimentary.
watching i posted about this in the jh discord a while ago, but it's been a good few weeks of thoroughly enjoying my solo tv-watching endeavors (as opposed to the social tv which is mostly how i've been watching things this year). once i figured out that we did, in fact, have netflix access again, i started and very quickly finished the first season of how to get to heaven from belfast, thanks to the rec from @thehibernatinglentil and @yogurtforever. is it weird to say that one of my favorite parts of this show was its colors? the saturation, the way people were dressed and made-up, their title sequence-- extremely cool and good, as befits the premise. laughed out loud, figured a few things out along the way but also didn't guess everything correctly, i was moved, i was briefly scared, i had some questions, i'm intrigued for season two. loved the array of strange and out of control and imperfect and wonderful women in this show, almost as much as the accents. i saw a headline that said there weren't enough laughs, to which i would argue that there were the right amount for the story they were trying to tell, which yes, is darker than derry girls (and this was also a surprise to me at first). but you try and tell me robin and dara didn't make you cackle like, every other line.
playing i've made it to day fifty-something in blue prince, and have solved (as in, decoded) one of the big basic puzzles, figured out the parlor room and billiard room games, unlocked the orchard, the west path and outdoor room, and the gem mining, and made it down into the cliffside via the gas valve elevator thing. i seem to have missed some really really basic things? i have only managed to make one thing in the workshop so far...i need to get more creative with my items, or look up some item combos, though i'm proud of the way i did put together how to make and where to use the burning glass on my own. i've chatted a little with @blue--period about our triumphs and frustrations, and have begun taking offline notes to save @un-serial-writer's notifications (and so that i could draw lol).
shout out to the root cellar, a particular fave right now. opposite of a shout out to the gallery, where i am one out of four for the puzzles currently.
i will also note here for posterity that i made it past the silksong boss (the fourth chorus, please don't laugh) that had had me stuck for the past three months!
making did some fairly aggressive mending on a pair of old navy pants a few weeks ago, and they are newly ready for summer which makes life so much easier! removed a good few inches off of both legs, used this material as patches for the classic inner-thigh holes, bing bang boom.
cross-stitch progress report:
working on i presented at Ye Olde Zoo (big medievalist conference) this year for the first time! it was a blast, i met or re-connected with some lovely people, made an actual friend out of an existing acquaintance, heard some great talks, went to bed and woke up early both days, dodged the likely to be more awkward meetings or encounters. was treated warmly and kindly by both of the academics i reached out specifically to network with. have designs on an maa panel for next year, and feel re-engergized on my own dissertation in a way that was extremely welcome and needed. summer teaching starts tomorrow and i'm not even mad! i will find ways to work on my shit because i am excited to.