Château Innsmouth 2.0

Rather than review yet another crazy week, I thought I'd get some ideas on (virtual) paper about what I want in a new place. Not moving anytime soon, my lease isn't up til March. But I'm still daydreaming of what I want in a new place.

The problem with the current Château Innsmouth is that it's laid out organically, and there isn't really enough room to reorganize. Plus the apartment has features that use space badly, like a bar area, and a fireplace/ mantle. Plus, as a crazed book collector, I want more room for bookcases. So here's my ideas.

A 2 bedroom (or one bedroom with a study) apartment/duplex/condo. The usual bedroom, bathroom, kitchen stuff. If possible a garden tub for soaking, and washer/dryer so doing laundry doesn't require extra tentacles to leave the place. All pretty mundane more or less. Hardwood/tile floors if possible, easier to clean and less dust. Don't really care about appliances, as long as they work well and I have room in the kitchen to do stuff. More than one closet would be nice.

The fun stuff starts in the living room area. Usually that's the biggest room in the place, and for mine it will become the library. Walls of bookcase, as tall as I can get/reasonably afford, covering most/all of the wall space. Somewhere in there will be the reading nook, comfy chair, lamp, fan, etc. Possibly by a window, if I don't just cover them all up with bookcases. Half height bookshelves making an island in the middle maybe, possibly with a table top to display some of my collection of weird knickknacks. No TV or couch or other standard living room stuff, I'm not one for entertaining. Maybe another couple of chairs instead. If there's a dining room, it will pretty much be an extension of the living room. (or possibly act as a study depending on size and location.

The other bedroom/den/etc, I'll set that up as my study. Will probably be the larger of the rooms. I look at bedrooms a lot like the ancient Romans did, it's a place to sleep and keep stuff, not to live in. Find a new, cooler desk (or desks). On one wall will be the TV and a rack for the various server, network and media stuff (some of it will depend on where the demarc for the internet service ends up) My workstations will be on the desk, along with my usual fidgets and favorite Cthulhu items. I'll put together some kind of display cabinet for more of the Mythos stuff. Framed art on the walls (vs randomly adding stuff to the wall with tacks), a few bookshelves (probably half height, to mix art and books). The books in the study are either favorites, extra fancy, or just stuff I like having in arm's reach.

So that's my thoughts about a future home. We'll see how it works out. Join me next time, when I'll probably ramble about a crazy week or two. Ciao.

Eyeballs and Books

Look, two posts in a weekend. Yesterday was the mental health day I took from work. I spent most of it watching various horror flicks, and futzing around online. Oh, and some vague chore doing at home. I'm slowly getting rid of clutter. Then I'll start on rearranging things a little better. I'm also going to pack up some of the scifi/fantasy section of the Starry Wisdom Library, and probably put it in storage. Shelf space is at a premium, and history, esoterica and Mythos has priority. (also, I have piles of books that need to be organized). Worked on that also this morning, along with more (and worse) movies.

Went to the eye doctor in the afternoon, when it was 105 out. Glad my eyeballs didn't melt. Long story short, my distance vision is a smidge better than it was, my up close vision is a tad worse. So new glasses are in my future. But otherwise my eyes are healthy, come back in year and get dilated.

Came home after that, where I ate way too many chicken tenders. I have to remember, when I have the brilliant idea 'I'll get a family meal, and I'll have 3-4 meals out of it', portion out the damn things...otherwise I keep eating them til I'm about to explode. Haven't done much else this afternoon/ evening. Rearranged a few things, made some mental notes. Found a random flat in London that is not only cool looking, but is the same building for the hero in 'The Devil Rides Out', with the same cool terrace design. But, since I haven't come into my Innsmouth gold inheritance, I don't see me relocating Château Innsmouth to the UK.

So what is Vulpine reading ? Currently I'm reading a history of the Cathars, The Lost Teachings of the Cathars by Andrew Phillip Smith. It's a reread, but given the news lately, who doesn't need a book on medieval quasi-Gnostic dualism. Enjoyable, if nothing really new to the subject. I recently finished a novella, Maniac Gods by Rich Hawkins. Unlike m y current read, this is a little more...intense. It's Lovecraftianesque cosmic horror, with the emphasis on horror. Cult does bad thing, divorced Dad tries to save his ex-wife and kid, bad things happen. Yes, this is done a lot. But Rich gleefully dives into the guts of the story and runs it at full tilt, and when you get to the obvious 'and here's more horror' he slams on brakes and does a 180 that almost hurts. Then he slowly ratchets things up...and then if you want more, go buy the book. *wink* In the bullpen is a number of other British horror novels, I may have gone a little crazy during Amazon Prime Day.

So that's about it for non-brain meats thoughts. Tomorrow I go see Denzel Washington beat people up, and then it's back to work of some stress. But I will survive. Cthulhu's told me so. (Oh yeah, and if you wonder why I have more links than usual, I changed some stuff in my ViM configuration, and this seemed a good test. Yay geeking)