{"id":2442,"date":"2024-04-06T12:02:27","date_gmt":"2024-04-06T19:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/?p=2442"},"modified":"2024-04-06T12:02:27","modified_gmt":"2024-04-06T19:02:27","slug":"life-working-too-much-reading-too-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/2024\/04\/06\/life-working-too-much-reading-too-little\/","title":{"rendered":"Life: Working too much, reading too little"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"995\" height=\"241\" src=\"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AEG-violet-bay-banner-of-20231220.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2310\" srcset=\"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AEG-violet-bay-banner-of-20231220.jpg 995w, https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AEG-violet-bay-banner-of-20231220-300x73.jpg 300w, https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/AEG-violet-bay-banner-of-20231220-768x186.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>So, the usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve been entertaining myself during times when I can stay awake.  I took a ferry ride, and observed that the usual boat was in the shop, so one of the giant commuter boats took its place.  I texted a friend about this, with the note, &#8220;I like big boats and I cannot lie,&#8221; and he found it hilarious.  (<em>This is a Sir Mix-a-lot reference, for you young people.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am enjoying pleasant cross-employer camaraderie during my commute, and enjoy speaking with my solution-oriented allies at the office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m reading multiple new manga which are published serially and are incomplete, so it is difficult to know WHEN to write about them.  I may invent a rule about reviewing them at the end of each season, or perhaps 100 chapters?  (I&#8217;ll need a similar rule if and when I ever write about <em>The Second Sex<\/em>, which is complete but very, very long.  And filled with book flags\/darts that I&#8217;ve left there for points I want to dwell on.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I continue to avoid comics which are creepy about female characters&#8217; bodies (groin close-ups on underdressed female characters during battle scenes?  No, thank you!), while the men are covered to such an extreme that you can&#8217;t see their hands without gloves.  That is just weird.  If men are that uncomfortable with men showing skin, they should really work on their issues.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The drama and fantasy stories often have women softening\/improving violent male characters, even to the point of turning depots and recluses into engaged authority figures who actively attend to the needs of their subjects, and I don&#8217;t think that is a very safe theme to promote.  The hashtag for those is #charactergrowth, and I find that funny.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m still mystified by the many story tangents relating to agriculture.  There is a drama, someone is trying to prevent their own execution, and then there are many pages devoted to growing a crop.  I&#8230;  I&#8230;  What?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>There is a running manga in-joke that still surprises me, sometimes 100 or more chapters into a story: <\/strong><br> &#8211;<strong>a main character enters a room covered in blood<\/strong><br> &#8211;<strong>others characters express concern<\/strong><br> &#8211;<strong>the bloody character then says &#8216;it&#8217;s not my blood&#8217; (the actual wording varies), suggesting that they just won a battle of some type that is not being illustrated here.  <\/strong><br><strong>It is&#8230; very funny, in these stories &#8211; unexpected, as there hasn&#8217;t been a lot of violence until that point, or there was but it was distant.  The fact that I find this funny means it is well done, but also that I am living in a culture that has normalized violence.<\/strong> (Oh-oh. True. Yes.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please be sure to work on your own #charactergrowth without waiting for a new romantic partner, and avoid being covered in ANYONE&#8217;S blood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, the usual. I&#8217;ve been entertaining myself during times when I can stay awake. I took a ferry ride, and observed that the usual boat was in the shop, so one of the giant commuter boats took its place. I texted a friend about this, with the note, &#8220;I like big boats and I cannot &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/2024\/04\/06\/life-working-too-much-reading-too-little\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Life: Working too much, reading too little&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-2442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2446,"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions\/2446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teahousehome.com\/booksandcoffee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}