alexandra black

Author: Alexandra

  • Unemployment, Charmed, and Lots of Gothic Fiction | Weekly 42.25

    Unemployment, Charmed, and Lots of Gothic Fiction | Weekly 42.25

    (Amazon links are affiliate links. At the moment I make no money from them.)

    42. The answer to life, the universe, and everything. Perhaps it will be the answer to consistency as well.

    Life

    In the time since I’ve been gone from the blog, I found a job, then lost a job, and am now jobless again. Trying hard to stay calm and keep afloat, but to be honest I’m both a little scream-ey, and a little run-around-in-circles-ey. Regardless, the horrors persist, but so do I. At least my favourite time of the year (cold) is finally here.

    Reading

    Recently finished:

    Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing | Amazon

    Listened to Matthew Perry’s memoir (in Russian). I have no idea what to say about it, apart from it being very raw. And of course, now that Perry is gone, it reads differently.

    The Tapestried Chamber | Amazon; Gutenberg

    A short story by Walter Scott, from my volume of gothic literature that I’ve been reading this season. I liked it.

    The Castle of Otranto | Amazon; Gutenberg

    The more removed I am from this work, the more I see its merits. Its style was uniform; the characters behaved the way 12-13th century people should, and the suspense was there. It’s just that for the 21st century emancipated me half my reactions were ‘how bout you just choke that bi-‘. Manfred is– something. But if you enjoy classic lit and especially gothic fiction, you should read this. It’s the founding book of the genre. Some excellent humour in there too.

    Actively trying to finish:

    The Secret History | Amazon

    I’m definitely the target audience for this book. Volatile intellectuals, murder, atmospheric surroundings – basically, all the attributes of dark academia as a genre are something that I, in theory, highly enjoy. And so far the book is going reasonably well.

    Frankenstein | Amazon; Gutenberg

    I couldn’t read it in the summer – Frankenstein’s monster is a winter baby, after all – so I picked it back up as soon as the weather turned for the better.

    The House of My Mother | Amazon

    Poor kid, is all I’m going to say for now.

    Ghost Stories by M.R. James | Amazon; Gutenberg

    My current audiobook. (I listen to it in Russian on Yandex Books.) These are the classic ghost stories that I so love. A bit of spook, but nothing that would keep you awake at night. Also, the humorous moments in this are *chef’s kiss*.

    A lot of new books also joined my shelves, but more on them at a later date.

    Making

    Grape jelly. The country I live in practically worships grapes, but I’ve never seen grape jelly on the supermarket shelves here. (Perhaps because all grapes go into wine.) I am making some of my own, and I am following a recipe from Martha Stewart.

    Watching

    I just finished watching S1 of Charmed, and am now on my second season of Buffy. Gotta say, y2k revival has nothing on the original. Immaculate outfits.

    Listening

    It’s been either Marilyn Manson or lo-fi. This is my favourite lo-fi playlist ever, but this time around I’ve been deviating into ambience and ‘oldies playing in the other room’ type stuff.

    Playing

    Apart from my main four games, I’ve not been playing anything else. There’s simply not enough hours in the day, and I already spend a good chunk of time maintaining the main four. But I’ve been having an inkling to play a good old quest game.

    Links & Things

    content creation is actually a healing modality.

    Next Week

    Fingers crossed I’ll get at least 1-2 replies to my listings and maybe even an interview scheduled.

  • Round up of Thrift 36.25

    Round up of Thrift 36.25

    thought i would bring this column back, seeing as i’m making frugal decisions one after another and not even bragging about it anywhere on the internet. this must change.

    Roundup of Thrift was a monthly post on one of the previous iterations of this blog. I am not sure if there are any posts in the trimmed archives. If there are, they will pop up in related posts somewhere eventually. I talk about all the thrifty choices I made during the days prior. There are repeats – because if I made a frugal choice in May, it doesn’t mean that I kept making that same choice all the way through September. There may also be backtracks – some things may not work out for me after all.

    Sometimes I’m the queen of reducing, reusing, and recycling – other times the frugality episodes may seem laughable for how tame they are. Such is life. It’s easier to make frugal choices when you’re not spiraling. After all my main preoccupation most days is existing within society and not letting the mask of civility slip. *eye twitch*

    Without further ado.

    1. I had a plethora of no spend days. Can’t say they were voluntary – there’s been some trouble with my hard earned money making its way into my bank account – but the result is the same either way. A list of expenses avoided.

    2. When I had money, I didn’t rely on grocery deliveries. I actually crawled out into the world, hissing softly at passersby, and made it to the den of fluorescent sin, otherwise known as the supermarket. That saved me delivery fees and courier tips. Plus the supermarket I shop at without delivery is cheaper than the one that delivers.

    3. I made sure to bring my reusable shopper bags.

    4. I cancelled many subscriptions. Spotify is gone. Audible is gone. A transcript service I no longer need is gone. Canva is paused. HBO Max is cancelled.

    5. I also made a list of renewal dates for all the services currently in use. Some of them are yearly. Others are monthly but have a cancellation fee if I cancel the sub in the middle of the cycle (looking at you, Adobe). That way, if I don’t cancel the things, I am at least aware when they will be charged, which hopefully means I will plan better.

    6. I started budgeting again. There’s been a couple months break because budgeting seemed impossible. It still is to a degree – I have some highly variable non-cancellable emotionally loaded expenses. But I decided it was time to look at the numbers again, even if I can’t control some of them.

    7. My cooking these days is heavily based on the contents of my pantry, freezer, and fridge. That’s not fully voluntary – please see the above ‘no spend’ point. But it is indeed fully frugal.

    8. Minimal food waste – 1/3 of a fish preserve and 1/3 of a can of beans, 1 medium tomato, and 5 cherry tomatoes.

    9. No more coffee capsules for now.

    10. August was also the second month where I haven’t spent a single cent on gaming. It’s not a huge chunk of money reclaimed, but it’s something. Also no books were bought. No beauty products. No clothes or shiny things. I think the only relatively fun expense this month was a tasty beverage and a slice of cake.

  • thinking about notebooks again

    thinking about notebooks again

    not long ago i wrote about my journalling system, if it can be called that. it’s still pretty much the same setup, but i’ve been heavily inclined to return to my simple two-three notebook system that i had for an age before i decided that the answer lay in keeping a separate journal for everything.

    what i used to have were daily notebooks, very much the ‘dear diary’, with a side of did that, went there. and i had a tetradochka – directly translated to little notebook, think cuadernito if you speak spanish. that shit housed everything. it was a work scratchpad, it was random thoughts i had whilst parking my car, it had notes on business, projects, reviews of restaurant dishes, doodles, drawings, sketches, todo lists, commonplace, vocab, uni assignments, meeting minutes, etc., etc., etc. the sole reason tetradochkas existed outside of the ‘dear diary’ was because i didn’t want to lug my actual diary around – which used to be way more personal than it is now, oddly enough – only to forget it at an investment banker’s office. it’s not to say that tetradochkas weren’t personal, but they were so messy and full of to-do lists that it would be hard to discern the soulful side of it all.

    i don’t abandon notebooks, so i’ll be finishing every single one that i have going on right now, but i think i will softly begin combining everything into two or three notebooks again. so far the only thing i know i’ll keep separate is my recipe notebook. not that i’m such a prolific cook that it is warranted, but i just want to have these notes in one book that i can quickly take to the kitchen if necessary.

    another candidate for staying unchanged is my panning notebook – again, for the sole convenience of always keeping it on my vanity.

    everything else is fair game.

    book journalling is a big question in my head, because i know part of me wants to keep a separate record of all the books i read. but the journalling part of it seems to happen mostly in my main big book of everything anyway.

    that’s the main reason for it, i think. it all mingles and colludes anyway. keeping a separate book for everything breaks my flow, if there is any.

    the first notebook to be absorbed by my Big Neurodivergent Book of Everything is going to be my morning pages. i know there exists a theory that morning pages need to be separate from everything, but if it’s noise that’s the defining factor behind this theory, then, well, the noise is not going anywhere. the noise is here to stay, no matter how many morning pages i do. so i’ll just merge it into my main book, and see where that takes me.

    i’m not sure what the second book will be, but i have an inkling that the last one is going to be my book journal. the reason for that is purely material – i bought a separate templated ‘reader’s journal’ type notebook some two years ago, and i’ve yet to get to it. once i do, i might keep a separate log, with a page of monthly stats between all the book entries, while everything else – notes, quotes, commonplace – will get reabsorbed by either the daily or the tetradochki.