Settling in
Sep. 17th, 2016 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI'm all moved into my new apartment, which is actually a townhouse; I am renting a room and a bathroom and a linen closet, which closet is at this moment housing my suitcases, which happen to fit quite perfectly on its shelves. The bedroom is considerably larger than my bedroom in the last apartment I rented, which means that it looks a bit bare with more or less the same amount of furniture that crammed the last bedroom full, which means that I shall have to buy myself some bookshelves.
Or maybe a couch? It might be nice to have a couch where a friend could stay if someone comes to visit; the downstairs couches are not really well-designed for sleeping couches.
There is probably space for both a couch and bookshelves, but of course I have to think of the cost, too. (I'm working on a third Edmund & Timothy story to bring in some more money. I realize that I could make more money if I could write het novellas, but I seem to keep grinding to a halt on those, and you make no money at all if you can't finish the bloody things.)
I had my first shift at my new Starbucks yesterday. It's right across from a high school, which means that we get a rush every day at approximately 3:30, which I have decided to consider research for any future teen novels that I write. High school students are so energetic! Where do they get all that energy?
And also as yet incompletely socialized: yesterday we had a girl come in, sit down at one of the corner tables, and use the online order & pay app to get her drink, presumably so she could avoid interacting with any of us baristas. Did she meet up with friends afterward, or just sit at her table on her own? We got busy so I didn't see. But the second is an image of isolation that... might lead to a story, after some marination.
It's so much easier to come up with beginnings for stories than the rest of the story. I've been turning around another story beginning in my head, two girls who meet because their holds are on the shelf next to each other at the library and they're always getting the same books (I think it was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyherenya who inspired this), but I can't come up with a good idea for what would happen after that. I'm not sure "and then they have adventures like in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Changeling" is a viable plot outline.
What else? On Thursday Becky came over to help me move in, and she ended up staying the whole day to hang out with my new roommate and I, and we watched Pom Poko, which was unexpectedly grim. I suppose it shouldn't have been unexpected, given that Studio Ghibli also made such paeans to sadness as Grave of the Fireflies and The Tale of Princess Kaguya, but I was misled by the raccoons. Who ever heard of a sad story starring raccoons?
Pom Poko is that story. The humans have decided to build a subdivision over the raccoons' traditional forest home, the raccoons fight back with everything they have, and... they lose! Which is of course realistic, but not what Fern Gully led me to expect from animated environmentalist fables.
Also, some of the raccoons join a dancing raccoon cult and commit mass suicide near the end, because the loss of their home has driven them to despair. DARK.
...anyway, aside from watching Pom Poko, we also had a tea party, which was very nice, and Becky and I compared schedules and made plans to hang out next Wednesday. (We will be watching Thumbelina. Becky informs me that Thumbelina is way less dark than Pom Poko.) I'm hoping to see her once or twice a week now that we're living in the same city; we'll see how this works out.
So far, on the whole, the move seems to be working out okay - knock on wood, of course. I was a bit worried about it, because it seemed so precipitate and came after such a rough patch in my life, but insofar as it was impulsive I think it was a good impulse.
Or maybe a couch? It might be nice to have a couch where a friend could stay if someone comes to visit; the downstairs couches are not really well-designed for sleeping couches.
There is probably space for both a couch and bookshelves, but of course I have to think of the cost, too. (I'm working on a third Edmund & Timothy story to bring in some more money. I realize that I could make more money if I could write het novellas, but I seem to keep grinding to a halt on those, and you make no money at all if you can't finish the bloody things.)
I had my first shift at my new Starbucks yesterday. It's right across from a high school, which means that we get a rush every day at approximately 3:30, which I have decided to consider research for any future teen novels that I write. High school students are so energetic! Where do they get all that energy?
And also as yet incompletely socialized: yesterday we had a girl come in, sit down at one of the corner tables, and use the online order & pay app to get her drink, presumably so she could avoid interacting with any of us baristas. Did she meet up with friends afterward, or just sit at her table on her own? We got busy so I didn't see. But the second is an image of isolation that... might lead to a story, after some marination.
It's so much easier to come up with beginnings for stories than the rest of the story. I've been turning around another story beginning in my head, two girls who meet because their holds are on the shelf next to each other at the library and they're always getting the same books (I think it was
ladyherenya who inspired this), but I can't come up with a good idea for what would happen after that. I'm not sure "and then they have adventures like in Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Changeling" is a viable plot outline. What else? On Thursday Becky came over to help me move in, and she ended up staying the whole day to hang out with my new roommate and I, and we watched Pom Poko, which was unexpectedly grim. I suppose it shouldn't have been unexpected, given that Studio Ghibli also made such paeans to sadness as Grave of the Fireflies and The Tale of Princess Kaguya, but I was misled by the raccoons. Who ever heard of a sad story starring raccoons?
Pom Poko is that story. The humans have decided to build a subdivision over the raccoons' traditional forest home, the raccoons fight back with everything they have, and... they lose! Which is of course realistic, but not what Fern Gully led me to expect from animated environmentalist fables.
Also, some of the raccoons join a dancing raccoon cult and commit mass suicide near the end, because the loss of their home has driven them to despair. DARK.
...anyway, aside from watching Pom Poko, we also had a tea party, which was very nice, and Becky and I compared schedules and made plans to hang out next Wednesday. (We will be watching Thumbelina. Becky informs me that Thumbelina is way less dark than Pom Poko.) I'm hoping to see her once or twice a week now that we're living in the same city; we'll see how this works out.
So far, on the whole, the move seems to be working out okay - knock on wood, of course. I was a bit worried about it, because it seemed so precipitate and came after such a rough patch in my life, but insofar as it was impulsive I think it was a good impulse.
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no subject
Date: 2016-09-17 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-18 01:38 am (UTC)I spend a lot of time at my local coffeeshop, which also has a high school rush in the early afternoon (they actually get a lot of kids on their lunch break, around noon, but there's a smaller rush after the school lets out too). I get a lot of enjoyment out of overhearing the kids gossip and small dramas. I'm also continually amazed at how young high school kids look to me now!
no subject
Date: 2016-09-18 11:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-18 03:07 am (UTC)Bookshelves are obvs. a MUST.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-18 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-18 01:45 pm (UTC)Welcome welcome to your new digs!!
no subject
Date: 2016-09-18 09:40 pm (UTC)I also cannot imagine an American movie featuring any animals' testicles that prominently. Or admitting that animals have testicles. Cultural differences! Sometimes they occur in surprising places!
no subject
Date: 2016-09-18 07:52 pm (UTC)I'm glad to hear things are going well so far!
ETA "High school lunch rush" was my favorite time of day when I worked in food service. Both because the students were fun and energetic, and because there were SO MANY of them that the time passed really quickly. They were also, on the whole, a lot nicer than the doctors from the hospital down the street. The idea that food service workers were stupid and likely to get their order wrong had not yet developed in them. :\
no subject
Date: 2016-09-18 09:43 pm (UTC)People can be down on high school students, but I find that they're usually pretty polite, at least when they're talking to baristas. I think they're still a bit intimidated by the adult world and it makes them more courteous.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-19 08:05 am (UTC)What if they start up a holdshelf correspondence before they even meet? Like, Girl A sees that Girl B has just requested Book C, and Book C was a horrible trainwreck, so she slips a piece of paper into it that tells Girl B not to waste her time. Then they start trading notes about the books they're reading. Maybe they team up to build Little Free Libraries around town, and then they have to fight the powers who want them removed.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-19 12:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-21 01:31 am (UTC)Also I am very interested in the further adventures of the girls who meet via their mutual holds at the hold shelf. Would the one girl be sneaking in to covertly read bits of the book she HAD to read while it was still on the hold shelf for the other girl? [This is a thing I have done with books that are on the hold shelf but not mine, sneakily feeling as long as I don't *leave* the shelf area, it is ok.]
no subject
Date: 2016-09-21 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-09-22 12:12 pm (UTC)I'd love to read a story about the girls whose library holds sit next to each other.
The last couple of times I've been to the library, I didn't recognise any names on the holds shelf. I guess that's one downside to borrowing more and more ebooks - I don't get to see what other people are borrowing.
no subject
Date: 2016-09-22 12:42 pm (UTC)