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current to turn the mills
· Well, I learned the Chinese word for “olive,” 橄榄, which has to be useful somewhere.
· I made a lot of applesauce in the big Mai-san pot, so called because it was a wedding present by a friend of my partner’s of that name, a huge cast iron cauldron; it’s the only option if I want to make more than, like, a serving and a half, apples cook down almost as bad as spinach. On the other hand, there is no shortage of apples, I can make applesauce every other day all winter if I feel like it.
· My veranda plants are having a last hurrah; the morning glories have finally conceded to winter, but the cherry tomato and the strawberry both have a lot of ripening fruits. Knock wood I might actually be able to keep the strawberry plant going through the winter?
· At work, I damn near translated “aerial survey” as “avian survey.” It’s a bird, it’s a plane…
· Middle-aged to elderly Korean ladies singing “Country Roads” at the nighttime junior high—I couldn’t help imagining the lyrics changing “West Virginia” to “Cheju Island” or “Kyongsang namdo” or whatever, a song about wistfulness for home is all too appropriate in a community of immigrants. I don’t know if any of them thought about it this way. On the way back to the station, everyone who passed me was speaking Vietnamese.
· Silly question: what do you have on your desk? (or in/around the space where you write and do stuff). I have a large desk which holds two computers (Mado-chan for work and Rin-chan for personal stuff); a stack of books about Miyamoto Yuriko and Chao Yuen Ren; a clear drawer thing which holds postcards, stamps, clinic cards, all that jazz, with a small monthly calendar on top of it; a mug of pens, pencils, toothbrush for computer cooler cleaning, nail-clipper, scissors; a repurposed Godiva box, brown suede nap, which holds necklaces (the chocolate divisions help keep them from tangling up), memory sticks, and medication, and has a Mucha brooch and a paperweight stegosaurus on top; a small radio on which I listen to the classical programs; a sticker of Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan (drawing by skeptical_lynx, gift from clevermanka); my notebook, a plain A6 ring-bound lined one that holds work deadlines and other lists; and usually my phone and assorted temporary paperwork.
· Rereading Naomi Mitchison’s wartime diaries, immensely relatable. Reading something from the 18th century: “By and bye I found myself sitting crying over my books in the Signet Library, because he was so nice and I could never tell him so, never give him back kindness, only two hundred years away in time, one could get at what he was and what he wanted.” Tearing down Eric Gill: “He says ‘I do not gather that women have, in general, much of an eye for the beauty of their lovers’ bodies…They are not inflamed by images…they do not make or go to or see or buy pictures of men as men do pictures of women.’ The hell he thinks that. … And as to being inflamed by images--! The interstices of my days are full of erotic images. Quite often, of course, I use them as current to turn the mills of the imagination. I am 44 and should know what I’m doing by now. … I should suppose that most women thought rather more in terms of touch and less in terms of vision (or perhaps a writer thinks more in such terms than a sculptor)….”.
· Photos: various moments of autumn, more train bridges, and a restaurant (unfortunately not serving hotpot) that amused me.
Be safe and well.
· I made a lot of applesauce in the big Mai-san pot, so called because it was a wedding present by a friend of my partner’s of that name, a huge cast iron cauldron; it’s the only option if I want to make more than, like, a serving and a half, apples cook down almost as bad as spinach. On the other hand, there is no shortage of apples, I can make applesauce every other day all winter if I feel like it.
· My veranda plants are having a last hurrah; the morning glories have finally conceded to winter, but the cherry tomato and the strawberry both have a lot of ripening fruits. Knock wood I might actually be able to keep the strawberry plant going through the winter?
· At work, I damn near translated “aerial survey” as “avian survey.” It’s a bird, it’s a plane…
· Middle-aged to elderly Korean ladies singing “Country Roads” at the nighttime junior high—I couldn’t help imagining the lyrics changing “West Virginia” to “Cheju Island” or “Kyongsang namdo” or whatever, a song about wistfulness for home is all too appropriate in a community of immigrants. I don’t know if any of them thought about it this way. On the way back to the station, everyone who passed me was speaking Vietnamese.
· Silly question: what do you have on your desk? (or in/around the space where you write and do stuff). I have a large desk which holds two computers (Mado-chan for work and Rin-chan for personal stuff); a stack of books about Miyamoto Yuriko and Chao Yuen Ren; a clear drawer thing which holds postcards, stamps, clinic cards, all that jazz, with a small monthly calendar on top of it; a mug of pens, pencils, toothbrush for computer cooler cleaning, nail-clipper, scissors; a repurposed Godiva box, brown suede nap, which holds necklaces (the chocolate divisions help keep them from tangling up), memory sticks, and medication, and has a Mucha brooch and a paperweight stegosaurus on top; a small radio on which I listen to the classical programs; a sticker of Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan (drawing by skeptical_lynx, gift from clevermanka); my notebook, a plain A6 ring-bound lined one that holds work deadlines and other lists; and usually my phone and assorted temporary paperwork.
· Rereading Naomi Mitchison’s wartime diaries, immensely relatable. Reading something from the 18th century: “By and bye I found myself sitting crying over my books in the Signet Library, because he was so nice and I could never tell him so, never give him back kindness, only two hundred years away in time, one could get at what he was and what he wanted.” Tearing down Eric Gill: “He says ‘I do not gather that women have, in general, much of an eye for the beauty of their lovers’ bodies…They are not inflamed by images…they do not make or go to or see or buy pictures of men as men do pictures of women.’ The hell he thinks that. … And as to being inflamed by images--! The interstices of my days are full of erotic images. Quite often, of course, I use them as current to turn the mills of the imagination. I am 44 and should know what I’m doing by now. … I should suppose that most women thought rather more in terms of touch and less in terms of vision (or perhaps a writer thinks more in such terms than a sculptor)….”.
· Photos: various moments of autumn, more train bridges, and a restaurant (unfortunately not serving hotpot) that amused me.
Be safe and well.
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My desk has my laptop, a pot plant (ficus), a vase of dried leaves painted gold, two huge messy stacks of assorted paperwork with some novels folded in amongst them, a pad of post-it notes, an assortment of pens and pencils and a coaster for the ever-present teacup.
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Very glad to hear <3
Good to know it's not just me who always ends up with messy paperwork on my desk. Dried leaves painted gold sounds lovely! And I should definitely think about a coaster...
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As little as possible, and occasionally a cat.
I can't work with mess around me, so I have the keyboard, mouse, two large monitors, speakers, and a little pile of external hard drives. Oh and a neat stack of note paper and a minimalist mug of pens. And my phone. In the morning, there may be a cup of tea; in the evening, a glass of wine. Akira likes to come stretch out to the left ogf the keyboard for occasional bellyrubs.
Everything else has to hide in drawers until I need it.
Those autumn colours are amazing!
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Silly question: what do you have on your desk?
My writing desk is huge, so apologies for the long description. XD I do my writing on an old computer with no internet access, complete with one of those giant old tube monitors. So the middle of the desk is just the monitor, keyboard, and mouse/mousepad. On one side there's a dictionary and thesaurus standing up between some Egyptian-figurine bookends. On the other side there's a permanent stack of fancy Sherlock Holmes books and a photo-frame Andy Lau calendar that I bought during my trip to Hong Kong a few years ago. Most of the rest of the desk is covered in... more than a dozen candles of different kinds, some with candleholders, plus a couple of random figurines (a wizard, a camel, a weird tall broken antique wooden Don Quixote figure, a strange Chinese dragon sphere thing...). There's also a cup of pens, a coaster, a sticky-note block, some memory sticks, and a little metal candle snuffer.
My internet-computer desk is tiny and a mess. XD It has a widescreen monitor that's sitting on top of a stack of books and some random pieces of cardboard (for balance), some scattered post-it notes, several memory sticks, mini speakers, and a bottle of clear nail polish. And, currently, my glasses, which move between the two computers depending on which one I'm using, and whether I'm bothering to wear them. :P
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Monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, headphones, pens, notebook, Swiss Army knife, meds, chapstick, hand lotion, glasses (on a wooden stand in the shape of a raven's head), tea mug, lemonade bottle, mobile phone.
And great photos, as usual! The red leaves especially are so gorgeous,
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Come here! Olives are SO IMPORTANT xD
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I wish I could! I love olives, in cookery or as tapenade or just as they are. Maybe I should make picadillo sometime soon...green olives, but still.
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What glorious autumn colors, and I hope the winter citrus is being as delicious for you as it is for me.
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😂
My desk is a laptop desk and I do all my work on my couch, with just the (mostly barren) coffee table in front of me. Athough right now there are library books on it since I checked out some things for the first time in months. I love how rich your desk sounds. So many inspiring things!
Love all the orange in the photos.
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That sounds nice! If a little bit too easy to slip into a nap, lol. Reminds of my father, who piled paperwork etc. on his desk until it was unusable and always worked on his lap on the couch, usually while eating clementines...
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Oh, honey, I want to say to him. Mitchison's response is great.
Such gorgeous autumn colors! I particularly love the middle column of leaves.
I have a desk set up for the days I work from home, but for personal stuff I use my laptop on a lap desk with nothing else on it. On my desk, though, I have a monitor on top of a pile of books; Albrecht Dürer self-portrait mousepad; travel mouse; yellow highlighter; Frixion erasable pens (navy blue and purple); A5 notebook with ruled, perforated paper; reading glasses; handmade fabric coaster on top of a wooden coaster; fingerless gloves; a block of note paper; and a clear plastic 3-drawer desktop set containing thumb drives, a magnifying glass, pens, pencils, paperclips, binder clips, Library of Congress gift store post-it notes, and a Getty Museum lens cloth. Balanced on top of the plastic drawer set is a sheet of black mounting board decorated with postcard-sized photos of Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu that I printed out on my old printer right before the printer gave up the ghost in March 2020.
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Isn't it? She's wonderful--I wish we had more diaries of hers. (Also would kind of like to show her some of the picspams around here, yours and elsewhere, I bet she would enjoy Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu as much as we do.)
Your desk sounds lovely, both practical and with pretty stuff!
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My desk is pretty small, so the only things on it is a screen, laptop, tissues, waterbottle/glass/tea cup, hand lotion, USB speaker and small notepad.
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A plastic thing with coloured liquid that you turn upside down and it drips pleasingly into the different coloured liquid in the bottom half
I think this must fulfill the same visual function as my Galileo thermometer...
A tube of cork grease.
Right on ;)
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What I have on my desk...wires. So many, many wires, because I have a dual-monitor setup plus my work laptop, both of which are connected via many wires to both a KVM switch and an audio switch. I also have a fan, speakers, a headset, two very different lamps, and a ringlight for when I have the webcam in use. Oh, and a UPS for power failures. And my old speakers, which at least are very small.
Other than all the wired things, on my actual desk I also have my meds, moisturizer, a coaster (and usually a mug), and a few receipts and stuff to sort through.
Not technically on the desk, I have a file-sorting box on the wall, a rolling set of drawers with my Dayjob stuff (reference material, mostly), and the next manga volumes I'm going to be adapting on one of a few floating shelves.
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lol, it does end up that way! Also I like "floating shelves," even though I know what it means it always brings to mind shelves that drift around the room in accordance with where you need them to be...
<3
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My actual desk is very small. In its tidiest form, it has my laptop and an external keyboard, a utensil holder for pens and things, and my Long-ge calendar on it. When I sit down to work (reluctantly), it also holds my daily planner and an iPad. Everything else I need is in the spaces next to the desk.
The interstices of my days are full of erotic images.
What a brilliant sentence and also sentiment. :-D
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Thank you <3 What a lovely description.
I love it that you have Long-ge watching over your desk, tidy or otherwise :)
What a brilliant sentence and also sentiment. :-D
As I was saying in another comment, I feel like Naomi Mitchison would have understood and approved of our Z1L appreciation!
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I'm definitely not laughing XD
Lovely fall colours!
On my desk... laptop, weilan desk calendar, my diary, the bag thing you keep pens etc in whose English name currently escapes me (Mäppchen in German), pad of writing paper, a small notebook, two books (Rey Chow's 'Not Like A Native Speaker' and an anthology entitled 'Tensions in World Literature: Between the Local and the Universal' - both from the uni library), a miscellaneous box filled with such exciting things as scissors and throat lozenges, a thermos full of water, and a box of tissues. It's a fairly small desk, really no room for more.
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the bag thing you keep pens etc in whose English name currently escapes me (Mäppchen in German)
-chen is a diminutive, right? That's cute. I'm not sure of the English name either, a pencilcase?
How is the Rey Chow book? The description sounds fascinating when I look it up, but my tolerance for academic writing is embarrassingly low at this point... (talk here or on Discord as you prefer :) )
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I'm already sad that it's the end of the year, meaning the end of the Weilan desk calendar. Alas.
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So it makes sense that a Mäppchen would be a case for small things and a Mappe one for bigger things.
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(I wouldn't call a briefcase a Mappe, though? Maybe usage has changed, but I'd exclusively call a folder/portfolio type thing Mappe - leo.org agrees with you about the briefcase, but I, at least wouldn't use it that way and would fine it noticeably puzzling if someone tries to tell me something with Mappe as briefcase.)
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:D:D it's a birdplane! :D (sorry, it's such a stupid song. but i was forced to listen to it a lot over the years. ;))
question: what do you have on your desk?
On my work desk, I have the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and cables to attach my laptop to. And a notepad and a box of tissues. That's it. (It's still full when I sit at it because laptop and accessories just take up all the space.) And a box with more laptop stuff (camera, headphones, my phone, more cables...) that I carry back and forth because I need it both at the desk and on the couch:
The couch is where I write. There, also, I have that box, and that's it.
photos
Muahahah, great name for a restaurant. (well, not really... considering it's also not a great name for a person, but what do i know... i named my laptop that as well /o\ )
I love the bridge behind the bridge pic!
And it seems the weather for you is still so very autumny, when everything here is already covered in snow today. *sigh*
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Muahahah, great name for a restaurant. (well, not really... considering it's also not a great name for a person, but what do i know... i named my laptop that as well /o\ )
lol, I'm glad somebody picked up on this one! It made me laugh. (I feel like 一龙 must be the MOST BASIC name possible for a boy born in 1988 (or 1976 or 2000 or...), it's not a great feat of creativity, but then again he's probably okay with that.)
Send me all your snow, I'll take it, better than our neither-one-nor-the-other winters... (but be safe underfoot!)
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This actually made me laugh out loud. :D It's true for my desk at home, and I think only because I barely spend time there, so no chance of things accumulating. (I checked again this morning, and I have two more things on it that I'd forgotten about: a coaster made from those ironable beads, and a blackball for my back.)
My desk at the company office is the complete opposite. It regularly attracts scorn from the marketing people, because it looks completely disorganized and they think it's a sore spot they have to avoid when they do marketing videos or photos. Not that there are a lot of work-unrelated things on it, just... a few piles of paper, a few calendars, pens and other work stuff like a hole punch and a sticky tape roller. But they're right, it looks extremely messy.
it's not a great feat of creativity, but then again he's probably okay with that.)
I remember talking about that with a Chinese person, and they actually made fun of the name. They found it very uncreative indeed. I honestly have no idea whether he'd mind or not, and there's zero chance of us finding out, either. (one more thing to safely speculate about. ;))
Send me all your snow, I'll take it, better than our neither-one-nor-the-other winters... (but be safe underfoot!)
<3 Still ill, not going outside if I don't have to. (But the roads are clear again now.)
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How dumb of them, they ought to figure it's a sign of how involved you are in your work ;)
I remember talking about that with a Chinese person, and they actually made fun of the name. They found it very uncreative indeed. I honestly have no idea whether he'd mind or not, and there's zero chance of us finding out, either. (one more thing to safely speculate about. ;))
safe speculation indeed :) (Given his off-duty don't-notice-me tendencies I figure he'd be just as happy to have a dime-a-dozen name that doesn't draw attention rather than something out there, but as you say we'll never know...)
Hoping you're feeling better, take good care of yourself <3