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Scuttle Left... Scuttle Right... Attack!
Mar. 7th, 2021 04:34 pmThe unrelenting tedium is starting to get to me. Every day is pretty much the same, and every week follows the same pattern. Granted, there are some small shoots of optimism on the horizon but I feel I'm drowning in drudgery. I'm certainly aware I need to take some time off work, and have started to plan a few holidays in May, but with everything still closed and the weather grey and cold, there seems little point taking time off now. Tomorrow is a national holiday in Berlin and Wolfie is indeed off, but the place where I work launches their brand new website and considering I have been working on this for nearly four months, it seemed remiss to take the time off. And again, it's going to be 6C, grey, windy and everything is shut so all I would do is sit around the house anyway.
This is not to say everything is bleak. The vaccination effort in Germany has now stepped up, with over 230,000 receiving a jab yesterday, and changes announced on Thursday suggest there will be a significant boost in rollout over the coming weeks. While lockdown has been extended until 28 March, there has been increased opening up, with hairdressers open from last Monday and bookshops, florist and garden centres opening from tomorrow (or Tuesday in the case of Berlin, considering the city takes International Women's Day off). All of this makes a slight mockery of my sense of obsessive gloom over vaccinations on Monday, although the pace here is still far slower than it needs to be. Still, I am optimistic, as the rate as increased by one third over the last fortnight and although infections are increasingly slightly, I am hopeful a stronger vaccination program will counter it. Therefore, I cling to the idea that by May we may even be allowed in pubs, if only beer gardens outside, and that things will return to normal. Certainly, now we have been in yhe German capital for four months, we'd actually like to experience some of it.
One of the worries I had going into this week was dealing with the UK census, but those concerns have been assuaged following my ringing them yesterday. I now know exactly what I need to do, which certainly puts my mind at ease. We are still struggling to sort a new flat out in Berlin though, with no-one really getting back to us last week. We do like the ones I visited ten days ago, but a move in date of 1 June is a month too late based on our current lease here. However, our current landlords haven't gotten back to us about the possibility of extending our tenancy, while the estate agents have been quite silent too. Wolfie seems to be adopting a laissez-faire approach to things, taking a couple of days to get things done, which concerns me as I know the competitiveness of the Berlin rental market. I am looking at houses on all of the apps every weeknight and sending them over to him, but to be fair to Wolfie, he is the one dealing with this directly and knows the state of affairs better than I.
Thursday was Crabulon Day, something we had conceived back in August when mishearing the lyrics to Evil Scarecrow's Crabulon, which is the totemic song of Catnip Radio. Indeed, Gothicat even got the lead singer of the band to record an intro that is played at 10pm (UK time) when the song is regularly aired. This was my idea upon hearing the phrase 'march forth...' in the song, and with Thursday being March 4th, it made sense. Catnip Radio generally doesn't do much on Thursdays but they had a six-hour extravaganza, during which time we got to listen to a wide range of music. Wolfie's foot is still buggered, which meant we haven't been able to do any fetish stuff recently, but a 7pm start (our time) did afford us a few hours to be able to do petplay, so I spent much of the evening dogged up. Getting into sub space was quite difficult with the music on, and I kept zoning in and out of it, but it was spiritually gratifying to be able to be a dog again, something I haven't experienced since last summer.
Last night we did another beer tasting Zoom call, with a wider number of Americans joining in. This was largely arranged at the behest of my friend Gao, and saw the usual crew attend for five hours of drinks. We started an hour later as I am trying to cut back my alcohol consumption, while the presence of the Americans meant it went on much later than when we left to join Stray's Jackbox night at around 1:30am. The increased American presence was good though and we got to sample a range of beers from Tiny Rebel, the Insel Brauerei and a special 10% sweet stout from Ulitje. While these events tend to be about sharing tasting notes, last night I deliberately kept the ABVs quite low, so as not to feel like death today. That worked quite well really, as did the burger we had beforehand, which provided just enough sustinance without inducing bloatedness. We also didn't need any snacks afterwards which surprised me. The highlight for us was looking at the extensive and large election notice that Evi was sent, detailing all candidates from all 34 parties running in the Dutch elections on 17 March. Oh, how I wish for such plurality in the UK electoral system.
The rest of the week was the usual treadmill really, with work dominating. On Monday and Wednesday I got to hang out with Blacksnip on VR Chat, apologising for my lack of presence there of late, while I also finished the relentless miserable yet evocotive Frankenstein earlier, which was a fantastic read. On Thursday evening, after Gothi's set, we had our usual Geoguessr evening during which I probably drank more than I intended, feeling somewhat pressured as Wolfie was drinking to self-medicate against his swollen foot. Meanwhile, with Stray's Jackbox last night, we played a wide variety of games but I trailed off towards the end, largely because the focus was on some of the drawing games I find less exciting such as Bidiots and Civic Doodle. Still, it was heartening to hear the crew were demanding our presence, as we were about an hour later than we usually are due to the beer tasting evening.
Aside from this, I have been contenting myself in buying unicorn t-shirts and a few furry books, in preparation for the book I am hoping to continue writing later in the month. I have left this longer than I thought I would, expecting to be able to do some more authorship around Christmas, but this is why I have been reading the likes of Frankenstein as I need to find a cohesive narrative to the work. This was on the recommendation of the publisher, whose furry books I have purchased, and with Wolfie likely away on business later in the month, I am hoping to be able to spend a few evening dedicated to bashing my manuscript into shape. If that doesn't work, I may just take a few days off to do the same, as I don't want to turn down this opportunity. Plus I need a holiday anyway and would like to finish my writing before lockdown is eased significantly, just because I know the distractions at that point combined with my yearning to travel will make it far far harder.
The final thing that happened this week was I commissioned a fantastic piece from Lozbunneh to celebrate coming out as genderfluid. I have been looking for an artist to commemorate this for a while, and when I saw Loz was doing Telegram stickers, I snapped them up, as well as asking about full-body art. The piece came out incredibly well, with the body shape fitting perfectly between masculinity and feminity. It was also a very popular piece on Twitter and I have been both humbled and encouraged by everyone's acceptance. It certainly is a memorable piece of art which I will forever cherish.
This is not to say everything is bleak. The vaccination effort in Germany has now stepped up, with over 230,000 receiving a jab yesterday, and changes announced on Thursday suggest there will be a significant boost in rollout over the coming weeks. While lockdown has been extended until 28 March, there has been increased opening up, with hairdressers open from last Monday and bookshops, florist and garden centres opening from tomorrow (or Tuesday in the case of Berlin, considering the city takes International Women's Day off). All of this makes a slight mockery of my sense of obsessive gloom over vaccinations on Monday, although the pace here is still far slower than it needs to be. Still, I am optimistic, as the rate as increased by one third over the last fortnight and although infections are increasingly slightly, I am hopeful a stronger vaccination program will counter it. Therefore, I cling to the idea that by May we may even be allowed in pubs, if only beer gardens outside, and that things will return to normal. Certainly, now we have been in yhe German capital for four months, we'd actually like to experience some of it.
One of the worries I had going into this week was dealing with the UK census, but those concerns have been assuaged following my ringing them yesterday. I now know exactly what I need to do, which certainly puts my mind at ease. We are still struggling to sort a new flat out in Berlin though, with no-one really getting back to us last week. We do like the ones I visited ten days ago, but a move in date of 1 June is a month too late based on our current lease here. However, our current landlords haven't gotten back to us about the possibility of extending our tenancy, while the estate agents have been quite silent too. Wolfie seems to be adopting a laissez-faire approach to things, taking a couple of days to get things done, which concerns me as I know the competitiveness of the Berlin rental market. I am looking at houses on all of the apps every weeknight and sending them over to him, but to be fair to Wolfie, he is the one dealing with this directly and knows the state of affairs better than I.
Thursday was Crabulon Day, something we had conceived back in August when mishearing the lyrics to Evil Scarecrow's Crabulon, which is the totemic song of Catnip Radio. Indeed, Gothicat even got the lead singer of the band to record an intro that is played at 10pm (UK time) when the song is regularly aired. This was my idea upon hearing the phrase 'march forth...' in the song, and with Thursday being March 4th, it made sense. Catnip Radio generally doesn't do much on Thursdays but they had a six-hour extravaganza, during which time we got to listen to a wide range of music. Wolfie's foot is still buggered, which meant we haven't been able to do any fetish stuff recently, but a 7pm start (our time) did afford us a few hours to be able to do petplay, so I spent much of the evening dogged up. Getting into sub space was quite difficult with the music on, and I kept zoning in and out of it, but it was spiritually gratifying to be able to be a dog again, something I haven't experienced since last summer.
Last night we did another beer tasting Zoom call, with a wider number of Americans joining in. This was largely arranged at the behest of my friend Gao, and saw the usual crew attend for five hours of drinks. We started an hour later as I am trying to cut back my alcohol consumption, while the presence of the Americans meant it went on much later than when we left to join Stray's Jackbox night at around 1:30am. The increased American presence was good though and we got to sample a range of beers from Tiny Rebel, the Insel Brauerei and a special 10% sweet stout from Ulitje. While these events tend to be about sharing tasting notes, last night I deliberately kept the ABVs quite low, so as not to feel like death today. That worked quite well really, as did the burger we had beforehand, which provided just enough sustinance without inducing bloatedness. We also didn't need any snacks afterwards which surprised me. The highlight for us was looking at the extensive and large election notice that Evi was sent, detailing all candidates from all 34 parties running in the Dutch elections on 17 March. Oh, how I wish for such plurality in the UK electoral system.
The rest of the week was the usual treadmill really, with work dominating. On Monday and Wednesday I got to hang out with Blacksnip on VR Chat, apologising for my lack of presence there of late, while I also finished the relentless miserable yet evocotive Frankenstein earlier, which was a fantastic read. On Thursday evening, after Gothi's set, we had our usual Geoguessr evening during which I probably drank more than I intended, feeling somewhat pressured as Wolfie was drinking to self-medicate against his swollen foot. Meanwhile, with Stray's Jackbox last night, we played a wide variety of games but I trailed off towards the end, largely because the focus was on some of the drawing games I find less exciting such as Bidiots and Civic Doodle. Still, it was heartening to hear the crew were demanding our presence, as we were about an hour later than we usually are due to the beer tasting evening.
Aside from this, I have been contenting myself in buying unicorn t-shirts and a few furry books, in preparation for the book I am hoping to continue writing later in the month. I have left this longer than I thought I would, expecting to be able to do some more authorship around Christmas, but this is why I have been reading the likes of Frankenstein as I need to find a cohesive narrative to the work. This was on the recommendation of the publisher, whose furry books I have purchased, and with Wolfie likely away on business later in the month, I am hoping to be able to spend a few evening dedicated to bashing my manuscript into shape. If that doesn't work, I may just take a few days off to do the same, as I don't want to turn down this opportunity. Plus I need a holiday anyway and would like to finish my writing before lockdown is eased significantly, just because I know the distractions at that point combined with my yearning to travel will make it far far harder.
The final thing that happened this week was I commissioned a fantastic piece from Lozbunneh to celebrate coming out as genderfluid. I have been looking for an artist to commemorate this for a while, and when I saw Loz was doing Telegram stickers, I snapped them up, as well as asking about full-body art. The piece came out incredibly well, with the body shape fitting perfectly between masculinity and feminity. It was also a very popular piece on Twitter and I have been both humbled and encouraged by everyone's acceptance. It certainly is a memorable piece of art which I will forever cherish.
