nineveh_uk

And in 2023, no less. I'm not entirely sure how that happened. Well, I am - time rolled on, and I am still on the long haul with Covid. I've been reading over bits of my diary and DW from the time, and it's obvious how early I wasn't getting over it, but also how strong the external messaging was that anyone not on a ventilator was just fine. And I didn't appear to have any breathing difficulties, which turns out to be extremely inaccurate, because obviously I did but I wasn't really aware of them, so obviously it was just a cold.** We live and learn, but I am very pissed off that I didn't get to go skiing in 2020 for good reason, but the reasons for 2022 and 2023 have been a lot less bloody good.

All of which is to say that today I am feeling long Covidy and a bit grumpy even though yes, I am better than I was, and my shoulder hurts because I swept in front of the house yesterday*** thinking that it was getting better (which it is) and it would be fine (which it wasn't), and once again I haven't written any fic this weekend, because I've been really tired and I just don't want to look at the computer outside work. It has not helped at all that for three days I had to be up and dressed by 7:30am for the roofers, and on Saturday they didn't arrive until 9. In fairness to the roofers, they shouldn't have arrived on Saturday at all, but they were set back by the weather. They were very nice and professional and grateful on Saturday for M&S cook-from-frozen Danish pastries.*****

So to be all Pollyanna about some better things:

- Four days of work left and then I am off for eleven and staying at home. Nice as it is to go away, I really need more than a weekend at home for a combination of rest, doing some sorting in the house, and using a modest amount of energy on enjoyment both doing hobbies at home and also going out. I'm not going to drag myself to London or anywhere else, but I might get to the Ashmolean.

- I am reading The Flight of the Heron. I can see why it has a niche fandom, it is extraordinarily full of slashy hurt/comfort, enemies-to-friends, and also very well written with deft characterisation and some in excellent landscape descriptions, in a 1920s sort of way.**** It does show up how thin my eighteenth-century history is, though.

- It is spring! All hope of snow is clearly over, the daffodils are out or nearly there, the cherry trees on the communal lawn have buds on. And the March showers, of which there are many, are now landing on my new lead flashing and flat roof.

- I have been having some fun doing some painting, both experimenting with watercolour technique and returning to the fantasy landscapes of my teens (at Easter, I'll do some drawing practice so I can put people in them). Having annoyingly mucked up the sky on one, this was resolved by trying the mount I had originally intended it for, but which I had exceeded in an enthusiasm of paper-stretching. Turns out cutting out most of the sky and otherwise altering the proportions back to my original thought made the whole thing much better as a composition.

- Although it is - oh woe! - the end of the winter sports season this weekend (except ski jumping, which I don't care about), I have enjoyed the cross-country skiing and the skating a lot. So to finish, here is an about to retire Keegan Messing having a lot of fun.



*I need to pay more attention to my handwriting and write more slowly if need be in pursuit of long-term legibility.

**My breathing is actually vastly improved these last three months, since I had a 'course' on it in late December, and seem finally to be able to do good practice in it most of the time, to cumulative benefit.

***The roofers cleaned up respectably and I ought to have just left it for another time, but I was "oh, I'll just pop out and do a bit more." Idiot.

****Some tolerance for 'phonetic' dialogue is required.

*****I need them to be willing to do the garage roof in a few years time. I had better go and pay the invoice.

Sport, very good. Everything else, mixed. Heavy snow today at least gives a rather more attractive setting, and hopefully will improve the air quality that has been visibly declining over the alpine venue. It doesn't sound a huge amount of fun for the competitors for various reasons, particularly the ones who got Covid, who don't need locking in a hospital cell with entirely inadequate food, but something more akin to a student hall of residence room with room for an exercise bike for the asymptomatic, and food including such radical concepts as fruit and vegetables.

( Cut for thoughts on various events, and doping )

Nineveh's rules of men's figure skating costumes:

- wear all black-grey costume, docked 20 points
- wear black/white costume, docked 15 points
- black with black sequins/crystals, docked 10 points
- skaters with a polychrome history may apply for an exemption for no more than one monochrome costume every 3 years
- monochrome costume that is genuine cosplay (e.g. Keegan Messing Chaplin routine) may apply for an exemption, on condition that the routine contains appropriate mime/dance elements. Exemption available for short or free programme only.
- exceptions automatic for Star Wars cosplay with lightsaber choreography.

TL:DR I do not watch figure skating to watch people in school uniform. I'm all for men who prefer a style that does reflect traditional men's clothing if they want to - see Keegan Messing - as long as it is part of the performance and not there primarily aimed at conveying the message "I am the most masculine man, not at all gay". Look, I'm just not a big fan of Nathan Chen, in case you couldn't tell. Dressing as Jesus in order to perform a routine to 'Jesus Christ Superstar' complete with 40 lashes (thanks to antisoppist for telling me that's what the counting + whipcracks was) - bit weird, but at least distinctive.

All I ask for cross-country ski clothing, and it is a small enough request, is not to be able to see the colour and preferred style of their pants through it. I don't need to know that woman prefers a pink bikini brief, or that man something that otherwise went out of fashion in 1970s. (The most important part of men's pants/suits in cross-country is of course that they are windproof at the front.)

Now onto week 2!

I'm still waiting for the Nirvana in Fire ice skating routine, but all due respect to Wang Shiyue and Liu Xinyu, multiple Chinese national champions in ice dance, for following in the proud footsteps of Evgenia Medvedeva and no doubt many other professional skating cosplayers and doing their last season's gala exhibition programme to the soundtrack for The Untamed.

Here at the GPF Cup of China:



(The above is geoblocked in some regions, this is the same performance.)

Also at Four Continents, at both of which competitions they came fourth. Tragically, I can't find it on British Eurosport last year, and so can only imagine what John and Megan made of it.