Maru's Mun Journal

... which the Nazgul got for Christmas.

Are football fans really that stupid, are Puma product managers really that arrogant, or is it an obfuscated joke?

... I mentioned here is even stronger with hats:

  

... occurs when you use 'thou' and 'you' in the same sentence, indicating singular and plural. I have an advantage here, though, because I use 'du' and 'ihr' every day in German that way.-

A few days ago, Yuletide recs rolled by on my Flist, and I went and read 'Springtime Will Kill You'.

It's one of the most brilliant things I've ever read on AO3, second only to 'Eidolon', and unlike that, it could be printed/published professionally as it is.

Because, Greek Myth as a classic hardboiled noir detective story? It's just another version of a story that's been countless operas, plays, movies etc., a perfectly legitimate permutation.

Incredibly amazing idea, amazingly written. Brief as the scene was, the thing with Eurydice at the end almost made me sniffle on the tram.

If you have Greek myth pups in Milliway? Go read! If not? Go read anyway, because it's just that lovely.

My new sports jacket is very brightly orange.



Also, I walked 5K in 1:05 h -- personal best. Must be the very, very familiar route to the old castle by the river Rhine that I often walk with my mum. She kept the time, and I just walked.-

Because movies open on Thursdays and sometimes Wednesdays in Germany, the Nazgul and I went and saw 'The Hobbit' today.

( Bullet points of spoileriness )

Also, I can has iPhone! Which means tweeting from anywhere, from now on.

Sometimes, you get these eerily realistic, rational and sensible nightmares that are even scarier than the ones with mummies and Cthulhu and the like?

This morning, I dreamed I had got some fancy fireplace installed in my flat (with a gel fire or some such thing), and Mephi managed to lie in the updraft between it and the chimney (unrealistic part: don't ask me where THAT suddenly came from!) and when I picked him up, he was all listless and just opened an eye and then went on sleeping, so I decided he must have suffered carbon monoxide poisoning (I said it was a terribly realistic and rational nightmare!!), so I put out the fire, grabbed him and my purse and keys and just ran outside and flagged down the next person with a car whom I vaguely knew, some business associate of the Metropolitans', and asked him to take me to the Veterinary Hospital attached to the university, which is between the big famous park ("Englischer Garten") and the university itself, and then we were at the top of the steep bank overlooking the river Isar, looking down at Munich (which was a bit more monument-studded than it really is; this WAS a dream, after all), I wasn't sure any more that it was where I thought it was, or whether it had been moved in recent years since I'd been a student, as lots of the university departments had been moved around and expanded, for example into the buildings vacated by the major branch office of Radio Free Europe that had moved to Prague (it really has -- what a bloody sane nightmare!!) as had several, including the one where I'd been based as a student, East Asian Studies AKA Japanology. Anyway, in the nightmare, I was staring down at the city and all its monuments, and wondering if I really knew where the veterinary emergency room was any more, and if I told the guy 'Yes, I know, it's that one*, just go!' and it wasn't there any more, then my cat would die -- my silly cat, at that moment still listlessly asleep on my arm, just opening an eye to look at me when I poked him...

And in that dreadful moment of indecision and doubt in face of a life-and-death situation, my nightmare ended.

One of the first things I did when I woke up, had ascertained that it really had just been a dream, nobody had installed any dangerous fireplaces in my flat, and Mephi was as well and weird as always, was looking up the emergency service of the university's veterinary department (which is still where it was -- even the street is called "Veterinärstraße", so duh!!) and some other emergency services (there even is an animal ambulance service in Munich, both for pets and injured wild animals -- we are a seriously affluent city!) and bookmarking them for future reference in case of a real emergency.

But every time silly little Mephi comes racing or prancing past me today, some part of me is happy that it was only a nightmare, and that funny little destructive animal is all right and silly as always and likely t be in the way where you don't see him so you'll poke his ear by accident, and then he looks at you all spooked and soulful, as always...


*Our university was founded in the first half of the 19th century, and all its older buildings are a tad monumental, including the University Riding School and adjacent veterinary department, built at a time when veterinary medicine was still mostly care of valuable war horses, and hence important in a political way. Anyway, it means that I'd have been looking for a specific nice historic building that stands out a little, even in that nightmare.

athousanderrors was right: "The Fall" is a very gorgeous movie. And strange -- the Nazgul was wondering what the writers and/or director have been smoking.

Also, guys with long curved horns seem to be a thing lately.

In Tibetan Buddhism's "Four Dignities of the Warrior's Path," courage and ferocity are absent. In fact, the qualities regarded as essential for being a warrior have nothing in common with the training regimens of Marines or football players or lobbyists.

The first dignity is often translated in English as meekness, but that word doesn't convey its full meaning. "Relaxed confidence" is a more precise formulation -- a humble feeling of being at home in one's body.

Perkiness, or irrepressible joy, is the second dignity. To develop it, a warrior cultivates the habit of seeing the best in everything and works diligently to avoid the self­indulgence of cynicism.

The third is outrageousness. The warrior who embodies this dignity loves to experiment, is not addicted to strategies that have been successful in the past, and has a passionate objectivity that's free of the irrelevant emotions of hope and fear.

The fourth dignity is inscrutability, or a skill at evading the pigeonholes and simplistic definitions that might limit the warrior's inventiveness while fighting for his or her moral vision.

[[from "Uncle Rob" -- I often like his 'advertisements' better than the actual content]]