whirligig

One that went down some rapids. That's how I feel. Things been moving fast, all things, in all directions, but things are finally looking up. Short and quick update:

I haz work, 18h in 4 days. Transport to and from work is the absolute epitome of what makes Belgium Belgium, which means for what is basically about 35km in distance I can go by car (1h30 drive in morning traffic if it goes well) or public transport: 2 buses, or 2 trains, or 1 or 2 trains and a bus, or 3 trains, all combinations averaging in principle on 1h, which I can live with if not for the fact that the 2nd train is ALWAYS late, and the either/or choice means the season ticket becomes expensive in case I don't use the bus, and I don't want to use the bus anyways.
See, I'm a "cured" car-sickness person. As a kid, mom or dad always put some anti-emetic in me, and it was no silly ritual. I remember being yanked out of the car at high speed and being held over the gutter so I could safely puke my guts out. Nowadays I only get carsick 1% of the time, and I can on good days even read! Buses tend to have a lower success rate, because of the being packed, usually too hot and smelly, the weird turning motions, not to mention speed bumps and roundabouts.
But trains I've solidly conquered. Only in 0.0001% of the time I might get a queasy stomach, so I prefer the train for transport any day: at least I can write and read without having to take drugs. And if I'm going to lose time by being shuttled from one place to another like cattle, I prefer to do something useful at the time, and somehow trying very hard not to blow chunks in the driver's neck is not what I deem useful. The driver might have another opinion of course.
Anyways, the train route to and from work is something that belongs in Alice's dreamworld or a Brazil bureaucracy: coming and going ain't the same. Even the hour makes a difference in at what station I have to make the connection with the second train. And then considering that with every passing year trains are riding less punctual, you can imagine that this shifting world needs some adapting to before I can slog the laptop along.
But! Cow Watcher has been busy, and with rewriting Barynn 1 no less, and also kicking around some new ideas.The incubator is running at full speed, digiblips, and this is good news!

Anyways, meanwhile I had to content myself with books that other people wrote. I finished Palmer's Red Claw (*love*), struggled through Charlie Stross' Atrocity Archives (struggle was my own head's fault: shifting world, getting up at silly hours to go to work, getting head filled with new important information about what job entails, waiting long time for trains that may or may not come, and then being just the halfbreed nerd that gets stalled on the technobabble because I know too little or too much), breezed through Daniel Abraham's Shadow and Betrayal in 4 days so much did I love it. I'm considering what to pick for the train tomorrow, but I think reading 600-some pages in 4 days has sprained my reading muscle. I'll see what entices me come morning.

Oh, and we're having a polar week, snow included. And guess who once again forgot to buy salt to ice-proof the pavement and bicycle lane in front of the house, mm? Tomorrow morning is going to be interesting indeed...