Finished reading Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, about plague, time travel, and the simulation hypothesis. Includes some more-mature forms of her standard tropes, plus links to other parts of the St. John Mandel Literary Universe. Quite good.

Have gotten to the point of fasting where basically any food I think of sounds incredibly delicious.

Finished reading Joan by Katherine J. Chen, historical fiction about Joan of Arc. Chen, properly, wrote her own interpretation of Joan, one who’s less a holy maid with visions and more “the Thomas Edison of handing a dude his ass” (note: not a quote from the book). The final part of the book was difficult to read — it’s a tragedy after all — but at least we don’t get to her being (spoiler for approx. six-century-old history) burnt at the stake.

Side note / content warning / complaint: In the book, Joan’s sister is raped (offscreen, and handled delicately, but). I hope someday we can find a better plot point to motivate the main character.

Walked down the Burke-Gilman trail today: about 3 hours, 21K steps, 11 miles.

My recent anxiety dream was trying to train a chatbot with an inadequate corpus.

Set aside After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000–5000 BC by Steven Mithen. I’m enjoying it, but it’s a big chonk of a book, and I have other library books due back soon. I’ll return to this while I’m between other books.

Brief snow flurry this morning, dusting the streets.

The book referenced several books and authors also referenced in The Old Ways, not entirely surprisingly.

Finished reading Imaginary Peaks by Katie Ives. The core of the book is a mountain climbing hoax, but it extends outwards to cartography and its difficulties, hoaxes more generally, and colonialism, among other things.

Walked down the Interurban, along Phinney, through Fremont, around the west and south sides of the lake, and up to Capitol Hill: 21K steps, 11½ miles, about 3½ hours.

My recent wikidive was old basketball figures: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of course was a nemesis to my hometown team as I was growing up, and then back to Bill Russell, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, George Mikan, and the Harlem Globetrotters. Also enjoyed three video clips of Dr. J doing his thing.

On Saturday afternoon, I walked up to Bothell (about 2½ hours and eight miles) and met Greg for a Magic event that evening.

On Saturday morning, we went with Katie’s family and Billie to the Burke Museum; the last time we were there was in their old building.

TV update: We’re caught up with The Mandalorian (including The Book of Boba Fett), and watched Kenobi.

Also watched The Owl House, which the kids love dearly and Meghan and I definitely enjoyed, and are partway through season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender, which we have more mixed feelings about.

To get to the point, though, Meghan and I watched the first two episodes of season 12 of Doctor Who, the first time we’ve watched it since the Before Times.

Current earworm: “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits.