집/home

My essay is 1000 words over the word limit this is fine everything is fine I can fix this.

Just gotta cut 160 more words, edit one or two images, clean up my appendices, fix some formatting, add a contents page and a cover page, and I can SUBMIT AND BE DONE. WITH. THIS. COURSE.

The next time I float my phd idea somebody just slap me upside the head with this post thanks.

My boyfriend is trying to explain cricket to me again. “He’s only got two balls to make 48 runs”, he says. The camera focuses on a man. Underneath him it says LEFT ARM FAST MEDIUM. A ball flies into the stands and presumably fractures someone’s skull. “There’s a free six”, my boyfriend says. 348 SIXES says the screen. A child in the audience waves a sign referencing Weet-Bix

The first time he showed me this I assumed he was pranking me

if people haven’t been exposed to cricket before, here is the experience. The person who likes cricket turns on a radio with an air of happy expectation. “We’ll just catch up with the cricket,” they say. 

An elderly British man with an accent - you can picture exactly what he looks like and what he is wearing, somehow, and you know that he will explain the important concept of Yorkshire to you at length if you make eye contact - is saying “And w’ four snickets t’ wicket, Umbleby dives under the covers and romps home for a sticky bicket.”

There is a deep and satisfied silence. Weather happens over the radio. This lasts for three minutes.

A gentle young gentleman with an Indian accent, whose perfect and beautiful clear voice makes him sound like a poet sipping from a cup of honeyed drink always, says mildly “Of course we cannot forget that when Pakistan last had the biscuit under the covers, they were thrown out of bed. In 1957, I believe.”

You mouth “what the fucking fuck.”

A morally ambiguous villain from a superhero movie says off-microphone, “Crumbs everywhere.”

Apparently continuing a previous conversation, the villain asks, “Do seagulls eat tacos?”

“I’m sure someone will tell us eventually,” the poet says. His voice is so beautiful that it should be familiar; he should be the only announcer on the radio, the only reader of audiobooks.

The villain says with sudden interest, “Oh, a leg over straight and under the covers, Peterson and Singh are rumping along with a straight fine leg and good pumping action. Thanks to his powerful thighs, Peterson is an excellent legspinner, apart from being rude on Twitter.”

The man from Yorkshire roars potently, like a bull seeing another bull. There might be words in his roar, but otherwise it is primal and sizzling.

“That isn’t straight,” the poet says. “It’s silly.”

“What the fucking fuck,” you say out loud at this point.

“Shh,” says the person who likes cricket. They listen, tensely. Something in the distance makes a very small “thwack,” like a baby dropping an egg.

“Was that a doosra or a googly?” the villain asks.

“IT’S A WRONG ‘UN,” roars the Yorkshireman in his wrath. A powerful insult has been offered. They begin to scuffle.

“With that double doozy, Crumpet is baffled for three turns, Agarwal is deep in the biscuit tin and Padgett has gone to the shops undercover,” the poet says quickly, to cover the action while his companions are busy. The villain is being throttled, in a friendly companionable way.

An intern apparently brings a message scrawled on a scrap of paper like a courier sprinting across a battlefield. “Reddy has rolled a nat 20,” the poet says with barely contained excitement. “Australia is both a continent and an island. But we’re running out of time!”

“Is that true?” You ask suddenly.

“Shh!” Says the person who likes cricket. “It’s a test match.”

“About Australia.”

“We won’t know THAT until the third DAY.”

A distant “pock” noise. The sound of thirty people saying “tsk,” sorrowfully.

“And the baby’s dropped the egg. Four legs over or we’re done for, as long as it doesn’t rain.”

The villain might be dead? You begin to find yourself emotionally invested.

There are mild distant cheers. “Oh, and with twelve sticky wickets t’ over and t’ seagull’s exploded,” the man from the North says as if all of his dreams have come true. “What a beautiful day.” Your person who likes cricket relaxes. It is tea break.

The villain, apparently alive, describes the best hat in the audience as “like a funnel made of dove-colored net, but backwards, with flies trapped in it.”

This is every bit as good as that time in Australia in 1975, they all agree, drinking their tea and eating home-made cakes sent in by the fans. The poet comments favorably on the icing and sugar-preserved violets. The Yorkshire man discourses on the nature of sponge. The villain clatters his cup too hard on his saucer. To cover his embarrassment, the poet begins scrolling through Twitter on his phone, reading aloud the best memes in his enchanting milky voice. Then, with joy, he reads an @ from an ornithologist at the University of Reading: seagulls do eat tacos! A reference is cited; the poet reads it aloud. Everyone cheers.

You are honestly - against your will - kind of into it! but also: weirdly enraged.

“Was that … it?” you ask, deeming it safe to interrupt.

“No,” says the person who likes cricket, “This is second tea break on the first day. We won’t know where we really are until lunch tomorrow.”

And - because you cannot stop them - you have to accept this; if cricket teaches you anything, it is this gentle and radical acceptance.

I thought this post was about… crickets like, you know, crickets…

No it is, you’re right, you’ve nailed it

Either Seo In Guk is releasing an epic YouTube vlog type video thing on his channel with Ahn Jae Hyun and K. Will, or my subtitle-free-Korean is very rusty and he's releasing a super problematic video, but either way I can't wait to watch it.

watched it. am deceased.

I'm loving that it's March and I'm already seeing Dracula Daily posts right now. It's so nice.

(I am not loving that it's March and 13c and 73% humidity out, because heat is the devil and so is humidity, and I am Beset By The Sun, but hey. I'll deal I guess.)

Dying at the idea that 13c is hot but 20000% feeling this sentiment.

sometimes “!!!!!!!!!!!” is a word

see previous post

Lee Dong Wook as Jeong Jin Man | A Shop for Killers (2024) Episode 6

HELP

nah cus i gotta see it to believe it.

like you telling me, my queen is not only carrying this show with her personality and love of food, but she's also carrying her drunk brother home on her BACK?!?!?

Only making it through this show with liberal use of the fast forward button like the stalking? The obsession? The control? This is not for me™ but people keep posting gifsets that convince me otherwise. And then I watch to catch up and I'm like oh yeah, no.

Lee Dong Wook as Jeong Jin Man | A Shop for Killers (2024) Episode 2

A Shop for Killers  킬러들의 쇼핑몰 (2024) // Episode 1