Last night a *badger* came up to the back door and tried to get into my worm bin and then I had a fever dream about a plant called pea sedge fuglingwort. It's too much. It's too much.

Made it three episodes into a new series of my detective show wondering where the main character had gone before I realised it was a different show entirely.

Just tried to order a pizza. It's 9.45 a.m.

All I want for Christmas is a Zohran Mamdani action figure and newts in my pond.

Going to try really hard not to think about that until after my deadline 🙂

No-one tells you about the dark side of literary translation, chaining Tunnocks teacakes in a dark room at 3 a.m., flicking fitfully between Orthodox vestments dot com & that list you made of synonyms for sparkle, all the while picking Bombay mix from the folds of your duvet & trying not to pass out

👏

Is this project (deadline Friday) going fine, stop fussing, you've got ages, as I thought at 21:31, 21:56 and 22:12, or is it completely and irrevocably doomed and I'll be in a sanatorium by Tuesday (21:37, 22:09 and 22:17)? Watch this space.

"Ayo cortisol spike!" yelps the broccoli haired boy standing next to me in the spear line.

I turn to ask what the fuck he's talking about... as I do so my torso twists apart from my shoulder to my navel.

I've been clovenmogged in twain by a zweihander-maxxing man at arms.

Trying to translate smut but people keep walking behind me.

Well it went ok I think, but I have woken up with a sore throat, hacking cough and all-over aches. Proof, if any were needed, that I should never leave the house.

I have to go and do a work thing now after several years of not doing work things, involving people I've never met at two places I've never been, in a foreign language and with slight sunburn. Oh god.

Ask Kid 1 about Toshiro Mifune or the structure of the court in Heian Japan and they're fine, but they've also just named the Beatles as John Paul, George Thompson-Johnson, Paul Simon and, er, Ringo Starr so yeah.

In the 24 hours since I arrived in Tbilisi I have eaten about 17 kilos of bread plus some bread, almost an entire tube of Pringles, some bread and a bit of bread. God willing today will see an apple and maybe some Senokot.

So kind of my favourite Georgian publisher to be putting on a BOGOF event during my trip to Tbilisi 🥳 🙌

Year THREE of this pond and still no frogspawn. Why do the frogs hate me so? 😔

Handy Reform Calendar of Outrage

Argh.

At this point I think we need to do something about all the stuff, because there's just too much of it. Being able to create stuff this fast is just awful. There's no room for any more stuff, physical, digital or otherwise. I can barely see over the top of it. Argh.

Yes, I have to say the swearing is coming quite easily today 😃

Send some my way, would you? Georgian goes in, Georgian gets stuck, all that comes out is the occasional swear word and significant amounts of frustration

I love language lessons. One week you feel unstoppable, fluent, majestic, and the next week you sound like a drunk tourist who stopped listening in Year 8.

Iconic.

Anyone doubting the uselessness of AI summaries might like to know that I've just been offered, as a choice of Ramadan moon-sighting authorities, 'classical Islamic jurisprudence' and 'Yu-Gi-Oh!'

Have been translating a passage about vomiting for about 20 minutes now and boy oh boy am I feeling it. Haven't felt this bad since the spiral staircase translation incident of 2020.

Trying my best to capture the voice of my two main characters here, but they keep lurching off course and morphing into Jolene and Mick from The Archers 😪

Hallelujah, lock-in mode has finally turned up: bland beige food, chain-chugging matcha lattes, insane sleep cycles, TV that's so bad it can't possibly distract on in the background, cats seem wary, no idea what day it is 💪💪

Doing the Lord's work

I got to drive the tractor today at plant college and honestly I'm not sure much is gonna top that

Whatever my process is has always kinda worked for me in the past, but i still also kinda hate it. Looming deadline, brain AWOL, so instead of doing anything sensible I'm watching a Georgian dub of The Muppet Christmas Carol.