missizzy

For the past seven weeks, I've been watching Dancing with the Stars, even while I have continued to think that when I decided to walk away from the show last fall, I made the right decision. Besides the most idiotic change of host, the dances largely don't feel as good, and something feels lost in general. (Though it might be the loss of Len, which obviously couldn't be helped.) But now is when they got Johnny Weir on, so I have been watching at least until he's eliminated. That they stuck him with one of the newcomers made me think the producers might not have wanted him to last too long; he does, after all, belong to a rival network. But he's still on, and he may well last until I stop seeing the whole thing live because I'll be watching His Dark Materials instead. It has at least been interesting to watch him be presented to the world which had probably forgotten him by now, and he's certainly as good a performer as he ever was.
I've also been exposed to the commercials, including the one for The Good Doctor, where the title character's lament pretty much sums up everything. I've seen bits of the first season, sometimes liking the moments with identifying with its autistic lead, but also sometimes having to turn the TV off because something hit a little too close to home. It actually doesn't conflict with His Dark Materials, so maybe I'll watch bits of it again. If I feel like watching such things by then...

Dancing with the Stars is over, and I am relieved. Recapping this season took far less out of me than usual, since it was only four Monday nights, and on the last one it was all over by nine. But by the time the winner was being announced, I was just hoping it wouldn't be Tonya Harding. I'm still put out America actually bought her bullshit and voted her into the final.
And these current days are stressful enough in the household, because my mother's computer broke Friday night, and today we got it confirmed she'll need a replacement. She's now trying to work with her Mac laptop, where she can't even figure out how to close everything, and I am not looking forward to her trying to cope with Windows 10. On my own computer the mouse is behaving strangely and I suppose I can't expect an already old computer to last that much longer. Not looking forward to trying to replace it either, especially since I'm still not working with my mother's Trumpite IT guy again if I can help it.
Someone on AO3 bookmarked one of my series with a note saying only "Billie Holiday." She has other bookmarks with the same note as well as one that, among other things, says "Gershwins." I admit I don't get it.

Watching the results episode pre-show this evening, I was actually taken back to my first taste of Dacning With the Stars, a year before I started watching regularly, when Joey's Jedi tango got linked to on YouTube while I was in the thick of Star Wars fandom. It was fun to see it again with more knowledge of the context. ( Spoilers for the results from five minutes ago... )
Went to a Jane Austen meeting Sunday where mom and I had a bit of a stressful time trying to make sure we went to the right mall in Tyson's Corner, found we'd been to the restaurant before, but not to the back room, where we were packed in so tight noone sitting the middle of a table could get out, and then enjoyed good food and a lecture on obituaries of the era and how dead people are remembered in Austen's work. The speaker on the first, who runs a British magazine on Austen, was entertaining, but told us more about Princess Charlotte than Jane Austen; I felt my parents had better analysis of his subject around the dinner table that evening. The second speaker, who sells Jane Austen-themed books, made it more about the novels, of course, and she was smart, if a little sentimental on occasion. Tommorrow my parents go to where the annual nationwide Jane Austen meeting is being held in New York, though we're not actually attending that this year; my mom submitted a proposal, but didn't make the cut. Instead they're just going to the Fanny Burney meeting, since that takes place alongside. Mom and I hope to go to the Montreal convention in two years instead.
Rainy days where this morning waiting for the bus, one minute the rain was letting up to the point I was considering closing the umbrella, the next it was pounding down so thick my stockings got soaked. Apparently going to get warm again, though. The big synagogue on the bus route has a big Sukkot house built on its front lawn, with a banner of an elephant hanging in the front, and I have spent the bus rides wondering what that banner's there for.