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elspethdixon Feb. 10th, 2020 04:12 pm)
elspethdixon Feb. 10th, 2020 04:12 pm)So back in December I posted a list of dates for a Winter talking meme, promising to post at least 100 words about whatever topic someone requested during a given 3-day period (instead of the usual specific day), because I knew I couldn't be relied upon to actually meet a deadline as targeted as a single day.
Apparently I can't meet deadlines of three-day blocks, either?
So here, just over a month late, is @sami's request/prompt: What things you find most comforting (that you're comfortable talking about).
This is an easy one. For physical comfort, there's my microwavable heat packs, my faux fur weighted blanket (the actual-fur blanket lives carefully packed away inside a zipped suitcase, only to be brought out on nights when the temperature drops into the 20s/below -2 Centigrade, because the the Stevelet's favorite comforting thing is apparently to rip entire mouthfulls of reindeer fur loose from it and scatter them all over the bed), and my vast collection of lavender-scented perfume oils (how many lavender-scented BPAL and NAVA perfumes does one person need? The answer, of course, at least when a new scent collection drops, is always "at least one more.").
For emotional comfort, or even just for when I've had a long day at work and want something emotionally soothing to watch that isn't going to require me to watch subtitles (which I normally prefer to have on everything, including movies and tv shows in English, but which I prefer not to have to focus on when I have a migraine), I like documentaries. Specifically, I like paleontology documentaries about prehistoric life, especially re-watching them. I love David Attenborough nature documentaries and find those soothing, too, but they always include something anxiety-inducing about habitat loss or poaching or climate change. When I'm watching something about the Devonian or the Permian or the Ogliocene I don't have to feel existential anxiety or be sad that a given species is almost certainly going to become extinct in the wild during my lifetime because it all happened millions of years ago and the end-Permian extinction event/Dinosaur meteor/freezing of the poles during the Pliocene wasn't humans' fault. Anything that pre-dates the Holocene is a closed canon, and a closed canon means not having to worry that something awful will happen to your favorite character in the next installment.
Because I know someone out there will want recs:
Walking with Monsters - 2005 BBC documentary made as a follow-up to the famous Walking With Dinosaurs one. This one covers Paleozoic life, from the Cambrian to the Permian/early Triassic. The best part is either the Silurian/Ordovician sea scorpions, the Permian synapsids, or the Carboniferous swamps secion where a giant spider gets <strike>smote down by the wrath of God as all arachnids ought to be</strike> barbecued by lightning.
Your Inner Fish (http://www.pbs.org/your-inner-fish/home/) - A three-part documentary based on Neil Shubin's book about humanity's deep evolutionary roots. The first part, "Your Inner Fish," looks at the transition from lobe-finned fishes to tetrapods/amphibian-like creatures during the Devonian. The second, "Your Inner Reptile," looks at the origins of mammals from the Permian through the Jurassic, and the third, "Your Inner Monkey," is about the origins of primates from the Eocene onwards.
Australia's First Four Billion Years (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/australia-first-4-billion-years/) - Another three-part series, this time about the formation of Australia and its geographical and paleontological history. Since Australia contains some of the oldest rocks on earth, this series literally goes all the way back to the creation of the earth and the origin of life. It covers everything from a look at some of the oldest fossils in the world (bacterial mats and really weird-looking worm things), to the evolution of plants, to where Australia's groundwater came from, to why the Australian outback is all red dirt like Mars.
Apparently I can't meet deadlines of three-day blocks, either?
So here, just over a month late, is @sami's request/prompt: What things you find most comforting (that you're comfortable talking about).
This is an easy one. For physical comfort, there's my microwavable heat packs, my faux fur weighted blanket (the actual-fur blanket lives carefully packed away inside a zipped suitcase, only to be brought out on nights when the temperature drops into the 20s/below -2 Centigrade, because the the Stevelet's favorite comforting thing is apparently to rip entire mouthfulls of reindeer fur loose from it and scatter them all over the bed), and my vast collection of lavender-scented perfume oils (how many lavender-scented BPAL and NAVA perfumes does one person need? The answer, of course, at least when a new scent collection drops, is always "at least one more.").
For emotional comfort, or even just for when I've had a long day at work and want something emotionally soothing to watch that isn't going to require me to watch subtitles (which I normally prefer to have on everything, including movies and tv shows in English, but which I prefer not to have to focus on when I have a migraine), I like documentaries. Specifically, I like paleontology documentaries about prehistoric life, especially re-watching them. I love David Attenborough nature documentaries and find those soothing, too, but they always include something anxiety-inducing about habitat loss or poaching or climate change. When I'm watching something about the Devonian or the Permian or the Ogliocene I don't have to feel existential anxiety or be sad that a given species is almost certainly going to become extinct in the wild during my lifetime because it all happened millions of years ago and the end-Permian extinction event/Dinosaur meteor/freezing of the poles during the Pliocene wasn't humans' fault. Anything that pre-dates the Holocene is a closed canon, and a closed canon means not having to worry that something awful will happen to your favorite character in the next installment.
Because I know someone out there will want recs:
Walking with Monsters - 2005 BBC documentary made as a follow-up to the famous Walking With Dinosaurs one. This one covers Paleozoic life, from the Cambrian to the Permian/early Triassic. The best part is either the Silurian/Ordovician sea scorpions, the Permian synapsids, or the Carboniferous swamps secion where a giant spider gets <strike>smote down by the wrath of God as all arachnids ought to be</strike> barbecued by lightning.
Your Inner Fish (http://www.pbs.org/your-inner-fish/home/) - A three-part documentary based on Neil Shubin's book about humanity's deep evolutionary roots. The first part, "Your Inner Fish," looks at the transition from lobe-finned fishes to tetrapods/amphibian-like creatures during the Devonian. The second, "Your Inner Reptile," looks at the origins of mammals from the Permian through the Jurassic, and the third, "Your Inner Monkey," is about the origins of primates from the Eocene onwards.
Australia's First Four Billion Years (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/series/australia-first-4-billion-years/) - Another three-part series, this time about the formation of Australia and its geographical and paleontological history. Since Australia contains some of the oldest rocks on earth, this series literally goes all the way back to the creation of the earth and the origin of life. It covers everything from a look at some of the oldest fossils in the world (bacterial mats and really weird-looking worm things), to the evolution of plants, to where Australia's groundwater came from, to why the Australian outback is all red dirt like Mars.