Some Friday things

 * Got my flu shot today. Hopefully I don't feel bad tomorrow (usually do not with the flu shot but I've heard that some people have bigger immune reactions to this year's formula.

In a couple weeks: the COVID booster. I like to space them out because I sometimes get bad chills and hives from shots and would rather not have a double dose at once.

* I think maybe using PBS Passport on Friday nights (when there is zero tv I want) is my new thing. It's less depressing than grousing about "well I guess Friday is still Date Night and so those of us losers without a date get the crummy tv" and trying to find some old movie to watch.

  (I donate a little every month to them; I started when Oklahoma's governor was talking about stopping ANY funding (even the reduced federal amounts) going to them bur I like that I get free access to a streaming service that's frankly more in line with my interests with post). Right now I'm going through a Poirot episode from time to time (there are a LOT and I am going back and watching the first season, which I don't remember as much as some of the later season ones) 

And they have lots of other stuff. I haven't really been able to watch Marlow Murder Club, I might take that up, too.

* I'm almost done with the pink mitts. Didn't quite get them done; the part where you have to go back and forth (rather than knit in the round) goes more slowly. 

* I do want to get those mitts done and wind off the green yarn for the second pair; I give an exam Monday and need simple knitting for proctoring it. 

* I'm reading more on "You Can't Spell Treason Without Tea" and darnit, I think I like romantasy now. The thing about it is - or at least about this book, and Sarah Beth Durst's - is nothing so terrible happens. Oh, there's mild peril now and then, but honestly, a lot of this book has been the pair (Reya and Kiara) making plans to set up a tea shop and bookstore together. (I also wonder - this being the second woman-woman pairing book I've read - if these tend to be more LGBT-friendly than more traditional fantasy or romance? I wonder if anyone's looked the the semiotics of that. Before romantasy, the only "romance" I ever read was more in the Jane Austen mode (which really is NOT romance; it's comedy-of-manners) and it was both written in a different era, and seems to focus very much on making a good traditional-marriage match. 

I wonder though if there are any of these TYPE of books with a protagonist "going it alone." I admit I groaned a little last night at the new Elspeth where I interpreted the very end of it and hinting the sad-sack detective whose wife just left him and Elspeth might become an item, and yes, I know she was married once and she also had a fling with a Scots poet (I mean, really now) but....not all of us wind up partnered. There is NOT a lid for every pot, no matter what anyone says. 

And also, in talking with my church-lady friends - most of whom are widowed but one of whom is divorced - none of them seem at all INTERESTED in coupling up again; in fact, the divorced one, after having a fellow sort of pursue her, commented on how awful some men can be and yes, I mean, I like men, but my recent experiences with anything like dating have not been great, and have led me to think "I see why women in that one poll said they'd "pick the bear""

I dunno. It feels a bit like, since the pandemic, it's just HARDER to interact in any way, romantically or otherwise. Most of the friends I have now, I had before the pandemic. I know I need to make more, but....how? There's not much social stuff here that appeals to me. (I keep hoping some kind of "sit and stitch" night, or some kind of "book night" will start up, but not yet, and NO I do not have the energy to try to start one, that's not fun, you wind up doing all kinds of work, and if it fails, you blame yourself)

* But at least I have Poirot. And I suppose I can hunt around and find other imaginary universes to escape into, either through the Passport thing or in books. It's not the same, but it's better than sitting and watching news or worrying about the state of the world.

*And who knows. Maybe when I retire, I DO try to move somewhere else, like even Denison has more stuff of interest to me. (I waited 25 years for this place to grow, and while it has, some, it's not grown MUCH and every time there's a "contraction" economically, lots of places close, and also, it's not really balanced economically - we had literally dozens of weed dispensaries, which do not interest me ONE BIT, and now they're all crashing as the market contracts and my state realizes they went way too loosey-goosey with letting guys do whatever they wanted without much regulation...Or maybe when I'm retired I just have more time and can find places to go to, or things happening in town. Like maybe I join the library board.....