![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Plane writing from Saturday 1/3
Jan. 5th, 2026 09:39 amSo that was it; that was the Jupiter splash. I'm on an airplane back toward home, after the usual 3-4 day slumber party with the bug's oldest friends, and it's a new year! (I uh, could live without this morning's US strikes on Venezuela, but right now I'm just going to write about my small and low-stakes trip.)
I flew out late on Tuesday, which gave me time to clean up the house and have a bit of a day at home but might have ended up being worse for jet lag (no West Coast daylight after the flight?). I didn't think to bring melotonin, or ask the bug whether he had any, and was miserably lagged for about two days before finally getting the long, resetting night of sleep that I needed to shift.
On the way out, a nonstop, I read Katabasis nearly cover to cover -- it was entertaining, a light read with RF Kuang for once not blowing the ending. It did an excellent job of skewering academia, or, more broadly, the whole notion that an association with glitzy famous brainy institutions is the thing to live for. And, with two GFBIs in my own rear-view mirror, I appreciated that. I thought I might nap, but there was only the reading, and the steady counting of how many vodka "nip" bottles my seatmate was consuming (five, by the time we landed). There was a cat behind me who didn't enjoy the flight even a little, which made me miss my own cats.
In the gift exchange I picked up Legends and Lattes, which I promptly also read. That was another light read, about a middle-aged badass orc lady who was retiring from fighting to open a coffee shop. Readers, I think I have a type right now when it comes to protagonists. Along with that there was grocery shopping, a barley-and-beef soup that I meant to get the recipe for, the new music we can always count on our Seattle friend to provide, and two longish bright-green walks in the mossy parks of the Pacific Northwest. The guys humored me by stopping briefly on our 12/31 walk to get a quick, bad outdoor handstand picture, completing last year's new year's resolution. And then we went to a party at a friend-of-friend's house, which I was far too tired to appreciate. Later we also had dinner with a friend who I think is now best described as the bug's comet; he flew out early on Tuesday, to spend some time with her before I came out, and she gave me an off-the-ground acro hug and it was lovely to catch up with her. There was also a brunch with Seattle friend's mother, who was sharp and fun at almost 80. The group isn't always so social! But this year it was, and it also somehow made time for a couple of traditional good-bad movies (Butt Boy and Good Boy, because I just know you care).
This year, maybe just with the perspective of my own big 2025 changes, I saw a bit of stuckness in the friends we visited. There's the one who thinks 2026 will be a shit-show, and entirely because of work, while being pretty sure he has enough to retire but not being willing to even run the numbers to see. Then there's the one who's rented the same packed, one-bedroom apartment for 25 years, and has a shelf full of very obsolete books over his desk computer (I'm talking Office 98, HTML 4, PalmPilot). He uses our visits as motivation to deep-clean every 3 years, and I would have happily spent 30 minutes helping him sort out those books, but... that stuckness isn't mine to un-stick. For someone who lets things get messy in between guests, he's anxious enough about little things being done just right that I suspect he has a lot of anxiety about changes to his physical space. Though he puts up with guests okay.
I loved the very dense fog we encountered late on NYE. It gave the air a volume and texture that we only ever get during snowstorms on the East Coast. I'm realizing that dense atmosphere like this has something in common with the spiderwebby "structure in the air" stuff that I don't like, as indeed do things like drone shows, but I am excited by it instead of bothered. See also the difference between wall sculpture and painting -- or am I reaching now? The third dimension; it matters, and there's more to explore there.
As always, there was much trading of video game suggestions, and when I get back I'm totally going to play Winter Burrow with the squirrel.
I flew out late on Tuesday, which gave me time to clean up the house and have a bit of a day at home but might have ended up being worse for jet lag (no West Coast daylight after the flight?). I didn't think to bring melotonin, or ask the bug whether he had any, and was miserably lagged for about two days before finally getting the long, resetting night of sleep that I needed to shift.
On the way out, a nonstop, I read Katabasis nearly cover to cover -- it was entertaining, a light read with RF Kuang for once not blowing the ending. It did an excellent job of skewering academia, or, more broadly, the whole notion that an association with glitzy famous brainy institutions is the thing to live for. And, with two GFBIs in my own rear-view mirror, I appreciated that. I thought I might nap, but there was only the reading, and the steady counting of how many vodka "nip" bottles my seatmate was consuming (five, by the time we landed). There was a cat behind me who didn't enjoy the flight even a little, which made me miss my own cats.
In the gift exchange I picked up Legends and Lattes, which I promptly also read. That was another light read, about a middle-aged badass orc lady who was retiring from fighting to open a coffee shop. Readers, I think I have a type right now when it comes to protagonists. Along with that there was grocery shopping, a barley-and-beef soup that I meant to get the recipe for, the new music we can always count on our Seattle friend to provide, and two longish bright-green walks in the mossy parks of the Pacific Northwest. The guys humored me by stopping briefly on our 12/31 walk to get a quick, bad outdoor handstand picture, completing last year's new year's resolution. And then we went to a party at a friend-of-friend's house, which I was far too tired to appreciate. Later we also had dinner with a friend who I think is now best described as the bug's comet; he flew out early on Tuesday, to spend some time with her before I came out, and she gave me an off-the-ground acro hug and it was lovely to catch up with her. There was also a brunch with Seattle friend's mother, who was sharp and fun at almost 80. The group isn't always so social! But this year it was, and it also somehow made time for a couple of traditional good-bad movies (Butt Boy and Good Boy, because I just know you care).
This year, maybe just with the perspective of my own big 2025 changes, I saw a bit of stuckness in the friends we visited. There's the one who thinks 2026 will be a shit-show, and entirely because of work, while being pretty sure he has enough to retire but not being willing to even run the numbers to see. Then there's the one who's rented the same packed, one-bedroom apartment for 25 years, and has a shelf full of very obsolete books over his desk computer (I'm talking Office 98, HTML 4, PalmPilot). He uses our visits as motivation to deep-clean every 3 years, and I would have happily spent 30 minutes helping him sort out those books, but... that stuckness isn't mine to un-stick. For someone who lets things get messy in between guests, he's anxious enough about little things being done just right that I suspect he has a lot of anxiety about changes to his physical space. Though he puts up with guests okay.
I loved the very dense fog we encountered late on NYE. It gave the air a volume and texture that we only ever get during snowstorms on the East Coast. I'm realizing that dense atmosphere like this has something in common with the spiderwebby "structure in the air" stuff that I don't like, as indeed do things like drone shows, but I am excited by it instead of bothered. See also the difference between wall sculpture and painting -- or am I reaching now? The third dimension; it matters, and there's more to explore there.
As always, there was much trading of video game suggestions, and when I get back I'm totally going to play Winter Burrow with the squirrel.
