ateolf | Network

$radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)$

The raccoons are fight-dancing, upright,
with outraged, horrible noises.
The night is illegible,
the streetlights dead staves.
You move into each orbit of darkness
like an extinction.

Time the storyteller is tired.
She begins many stories
but loses track of the endings.

What will happen to the angry raccoons?
In the morning, count the cats,
count the birds, count the worms,
count the earth.

No doubt we will find all the endings
in the end.

oneinist posting in

addme

Name: Oneinist, or One (they/them)

Age: Middle aged

I mostly post about: So far I've posted general journals, a bit of poetry, and some prompts from the snowflake_challenge. I've posted in English and Japanese. I'm still figuring out what I want to post about. I have a Naruto/KKIR fandom Tumblr, but I haven't decided to what extent I'll be posting fannish content here yet. I feel like I might post thoughts on fandom? Or at least I would like to. I'll find an excuse to turn anything into a bingo board.

My hobbies are: I have too many hobbies, and I tend to cycle through them, but I also have some core ones like watching anime, reading Japanese BL manga and listening to BLCDs, cooking, baking, writing, journaling, drawing and crafting. My latest hyper-fixation is Obsidian (note organizing software), and along with it HTML and CSS. The intensity of it varies and sometimes I take breaks or have slumps from my main ones too.

My fandoms are: I'm only active in the Naruto/Boruto fandom, but I still enjoy a variety of fandoms/media. As an example, love Star Trek Voyager and Natsume Book of Friends too; I just haven't created anything for either. I grew up on 90s Sailor Moon anime, so that one holds a special place in my heart.

I'm looking to meet people who: Post about a mix of things that we both have in common and don't have in common, it doesn't have to be fandom related, and it's not a requirement to share fandoms. I enjoy reading about everyday life around the world, hobbies, thoughts and feelings. I'm hoping to build relationships slowly and steadily.

My posting schedule tends to be: I've sort of gotten into the habit of doing the justcreate check-in on Mondays, and at the same time I catch up on reading and commenting. I also post then if I'm feeling inspired. That being said, I don't want to stress myself out by trying to explicitly keep some sort of schedule.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: If you write mainly about Christianity from a practicing Christian perspective we are likely not a good match. I'm fine with more cultural or secularized aspects of Christianity like Christmas for example (I decorate extensively myself).

Before adding me, you should know: English is not my first language, and sometimes I misunderstand. I'm sure we can work it out though. I can also be a bit bad at asking questions (I process a lot through association, so my mind slips into "that reminds me of the time I..." as a way of connecting when I've read something). In all languages I write in, I struggle with missing letters and spelling. Because of that, I'm quite self-conscious about my writing, and I can only ask for a bit of patience and grace. My energy levels vary throughout the day as well as the year, and if I go from very chatty to not that chatty, it's me and not you.

Current Mood: nervous
Current Location: Home - Study Desk
Current Music: Nature sounds

rejectomorph

Bumbling and napping through the lengthening days and diminishing nights, seldom finding a clue as to what is going on. It has crossed my mind that I have only actually spoken to two people in the last few months, though there have been social media interactions with a few others. In the actual physical space I occupy, I have only had glimpses of a few people other than the two with whom I've exchanged audible words, though I've heard sounds emitted by several unseen or barely seen strangers passing along the path behind my back fence. More often I've heard only the wheels of their bicycles, their footsteps, or the music from their audio devices. As the number and duration of words I've exchanged with my two actual correspondents have been few and far between, I think I might now qualify as a de facto hermit. Well, at least I've finally almost achieved one of my life goals.

catchthewind posting in

addme

Age: 30s

I mostly post about: Daily life - my thoughts, things I'm up to, things I've created (I'm an artist), my travels, movies I've watched, photos I've taken. The mundane and anything that grabs my interest. I try to find whimsy in everyday life, and I probably think too deeply about a lot of stuff.

My hobbies / interests are: Drawing, journaling on paper and stationery in general, reading fiction, watching movies, musical theatre, EGL fashion, playing The Sims 4 and Animal Crossing, Lego, learning languages, traveling whenever I can (usually on my own), and whatever actor I might be obsessed with at the moment.

I'm looking to meet people who: Thoughtful people who have similar interests and values. I'm looking for community and people I can connect with. I'm feeling very burnt out from social media and how loud and demanding it is with people just observing each other and nothing ever going any deeper than that. I miss feeling like I had actual friends on the internet, and learning about people's lives from all over.

My posting schedule tends to be: Whenever I feel like. Sometimes that might be daily, sometimes weekly. I try not to post any less than that.

When I add people, my deal breakers are: Bigots. People who exclusively post about fandom, fanfic, or book reviews and little else. As an artist, I'm anti-AI. And just mean, judgemental types, I don't have space for that kind of attitude in my life. Be kind or get out.

Before adding me, you should know: I have C-PTSD, hEDS, and I'm neurodivergent. I don't talk about these things much, but they exist in the background and shape much of my world.

rejectomorph

Daylight time snuck up on me, but fortunately the computer and phone clocks adjust themselves. One less thing for my aged brain to keep track of. But Saturday night I got distracted and let my dinner burn, and it filled the place with smoke. Not enough to trigger the smoke alarm, but enough to be annoying and force me to turn on the fan, and make the place chilly. I ended up needing to use a bit of gas to reheat the place, which would not have been necessary had I not been a decrepit twit. Still, it could have been worse. It had been a mild day, and the night didn't get too cold, so it was probably only a few cents worth of gas.

The mildness is continuing for several days, and then it's going to get, well, fecking hot. By mid March we will be getting highs in the high eighties, which is like June weather. Needless to say I get worried when shit like this happens. Summer has become the very worst time of year for me. The heat exhausts me, and the expense of air conditioning threatens to leave me broke. It's gotten to the point that I don't even like remembering the childhood summers I so much enjoyed at the time. An additional worry is that we could get fires. Wildfire smoke is no longer just an annoyance to me. It's downright debilitating. If summer is hellish, which I expect it will be, we'd better get some damned good watermelons as compensation.

( Sunday Verse )

dolorosa_12

I've got a cup of smokey black tea, I've got macarons, and I'm having a restful afternoon as the weekend wraps up. Other than my two daily trips out to the gym and pool, and a market wander during lunch today, I haven't been further than the bakery — where Matthias and spent an enjoyable time last night, drinking wine and eating a cheese platter with fresh slices of baguette for dinner. The bakery has been doing those wine nights for a couple of years now, but other than a flurry of visits when this was first starting out, I haven't really attended many. I should do it more — wine and cheese by candlelight: what's not to love?

My reading this week has consisted solely of a reread of Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows duology. This was prompted in part by my knowledge that she has gone back in and re-edited the books for new editions, 'correcting' authorial choices that she had felt were flaws or weaknesses of the books. I'm of two minds about this sort of thing — Samantha Shannon did it with the first three books in her dystopian Bone Season series — I understand why authors are itching to get out the red pen and fix weaker writing from earlier in their careers, but I personally wish they would leave things be and have the courage to just view problems in their earlier books as signs of how far they've developed as writers.

One of the things I know Bardugo was planning to 'correct' was to age up her gang of criminal underworld crooks so that the underlying premise (gangleading criminal mastermind aged 17, with his crew of similarly aged misfits, each of whom have equally improbable achievements for characters of their youth) was less ridiculous. I know she received a lot of criticism for this, most of which I felt was misplaced: it's a fantasy YA adventure series, and teenagers in improbable and unlikely positions of leadership and achievement are kind of to be expected in that genre. The absolutely absurd situations in which Kaz Brekker and his gang of unlikely allies find themselves is part of the ridiculous charm of the duology for me, and I have no interest in reading a 'corrected' version with older characters (especially since I imagine all their interpersonal relationships will remain very adolescent in character). For all past rereads of the series, I've relied on library copies, but this was enough to make me bite the bullet and buy secondhand copies of the older editions.

It's been a couple of years since I last read the duology, and I'm pleased to report it remains as enjoyable as ever. The heists and sleights of hand are spectacular and over the top, the stakes are high, the gang of mismatched misfits — all dispossessed in one way or another, almost all refugees or immigrants, all traumatised in one way or another — start out at odds, and ultimately find a sense of resolution, home and healing in each other. The other parts of Bardugo's imagined world in the Grishaverse (fake fantasy Russia, fake fantasy China, fake fantasy Scandinavia) are laughably cartoonish thin caricatures, but her Ketterdam: fake fantasy Amsterdam, a mercantile city of canals, warehouses, schemers, scammers and commerce remains a delightful creation. It's a place where everyone comes to make their fortunes, or to outrun their pasts — where at once no one is at home, and therefore it can be home for anyone. I always love coming back to spend time there. Other than my longstanding quibble with one character death that feels cynically done in order to ensure readers know the story's stakes are high (and Bardugo then having to wildly cast around for the one character she could safely kill off without risking a massive reader backlash or her planned spinoff sequel), I loved it from start to finish, and felt the reread was very worth doing. I'm glad I made the effort to get my hands on those older editions.

My tea is getting cold, so I'll leave things here. I hope everyone's been having restful weekends.

the_siobhan

My goals for this weekend were to get my tomatoes & peppers seeded, and to get my income tax filed. Both have been accomplished. Go me.

The weather has gone into above zero temperatures for the last couple of days and snow is melting everywhere. The sump pump is holding up magnificently. I went for a walk yesterday to enjoy it, and I obviously need to do that more often. The physio means all my tendons and connective tissue are fine, but my skin is coming up blisters because it's out of practice.

***

Two stories.

When I was very young and my parents were very broke one of the few vacations they could afford with three kids was to take us all camping. The first time they tried this they just packed the car and drove north but it was a long weekend and all the provincial sites were full. I remember that they found one spot the first night, but it was basically a parking lot for RVs and it was baking hot and awful. So the next day they packed up and kept driving. They ended up following some hand-painted signs stapled to the power poles on the side of the road and found a farm where the owners had mowed down part of the field closest to their house and were renting out spots to campers.

And it was perfect. It had lovely shade trees and a couple of swimming holes. There was a fence separating us from a wide grassy field full of cattle that also frequently spawned rabbits and other fascinating creatures and the owners had a roadside vegetable stall and gave all the campers a discount. We ended up going back year after year. My dad would sit on the porch with the owner and have a beer in the evenings. (If my dad had a superpower it was that he could make friends anywhere. He has a story about visiting Spain and watching the World Cup in a cave with a bunch of refugees.) I remember when my youngest sister was a toddler my parents set up her bed in an inflatable dingy inside the tent because she couldn't get over the sides and potentially wander off while we slept.

When I was in my twenties and going camping with my friends I inherited all of their old camping gear. The tent is long gone but I still have the camping stove, which is rusty and wobbly and a pain to light but still works. I also have their old cooler, a massive heavy thing with a metal body. It's scratched and dented and looks like it fell off a cliff at some point, but the metal is still solid. This thing has to be fifty years old.

Alas, parts of it are made out of plastic. My ex broke off one of the handles because it was jammed behind something in the trunk of our car so they just... pulled harder. (I have made it very clear they will NEVER be forgiven for that.) And just yesterday I realized that the little plastic stopper that used to flip down and plug the drain hole has snapped off.

***

The second story.

I mentioned here that I host my family for Christmas dinner in January. I bought too much food because that's definitely an Irish tradition and then people brought things I wasn't expecting. So I had leftover potatoes and carrots and onions, things like that.

I have a cold room under the porch, so I figured they would be fine down there. And I threw the bags into my big metal cooler and then kind of forgot about them. Yesterday I went downstairs to get a single potato and discovered my miscalculation. One of the potatoes had decided that it really wanted to be soup.

(That saying about one bad apple spoiling a barrel, btw? Could also be applied to potatoes.)

So about hrm, 60% of the potatoes were rescue-able. The carrots tried to get in on the act, but mostly when a carrot goes bad it just gets hairy and sprouts greens so I didn't lose anything there. The onions are fine. Onions can survive anything. But holding the metal cooler on it's side to tip the soup-from-hell down the drain was how I found out that the drain plug no longer exists.

So right now it's sitting on my porch to see if I can force myself to put it in the trash pick-up.

And even now I'm fantasizing about taking the lid off and turning it into a planter or something. I don't have a ton of good memories of my childhood. The memories won't go away if I throw out the fucking cooler! I know that. But I'm still wrestling with it.

This is ONE of the reasons why my house has so much crap in it.

Current Mood: reminiscing

rejectomorph

The premature warming has brought pollen, and the pollen has brought sneezing and sinus issues. Weird stuff is going on with my right ear, especially, and when that happens there is nothing I can do about it. I'll just have to put up with it until the plant spooge is out of the air, and there's no telling when that will be.

Oh, crap. The phone needed charging and I lost Idernet, and my back ached, so I decided to lie down for few minutes to get the kinks out while the machine charged up, and ended up sleeping for six hours, and hadn't put the desk top into sleep mode. It's been sitting here guzzling energy the whole time. I had stuff to do this afternoon too. Stupid old guy. Can't trust him to do anything right anymore.

Low grade headache, probably pollen/sinus related. Damn, it's hot in here too.

lycomingst

From the other room I heard my cat screech a sound that stopped my heart. I thought he was hanging from something or was badly hurt. I rush in and he is on the window sill looking at a cat on the porch like he's found his arch nemesis. If he could get to him he would tear him limb from limb. The porch cat had a 'S UP? attitude.

quartzwolf

It was a mistake for Thaddeus to trust Titus, but for Anne whether or not she should was a much more complicated question. Walking away wasn't an option, even if she did have the time, after what happened before.

"Every time there's been a Titus there has been an Anne. She's always his younger sister. Others might see it as a coincidence, but that..."

"We need to talk about this."

"No, Anne, we don't. You already know too much."

"Give me a chance to help you, Titus."

Keeping Cornelius from asking too many questions was the priority. Acting normally, and at least the pacing was normal, had to be the focus. The assumption the soulmate would arrive between lives was the mistake.

"I remember the hugs you used to give me, Cornelius."

"Before you became the head of the Council."

"Oh, stop worrying when it's just the two of us. No one else will ever know."

Maybe it wasn't the right question to ask, considering how scared Thaddeus was of the conversation to begin with, but Anne needed to know. "What happens to me if..." She closed her eyes. "I need you to tell me everything, no matter how bad."

"They're the first Titus and Anne?"

"Please understand I only have suspicions, Emory, but I believe they are."

"How is that even possible?"

"That is a long story, and I'm not certain we're going to have time for it." He glanced at the door. "I have a feeling Titus will be coming through that door very soon, because he's going to realise he made a very foolish choice."

Current Mood: thoughtful

microbie

I had the week off from work (though I did some work most days) and was able to catch up a bit on chores and sleep. I saw my optometrist, who confirmed that my prescription has changed, which is probably why I can't read for more than an hour without getting a headache. I scheduled an appointment with a new dentist. I took three bags of clothing and shoes to our local recycling center and donated a trunk full of household items to a thrift store. I think one sign of a tougher economy is the selection at thrift stores--there really wasn't much that tempted me, and it was easy to leave empty handed. I left my garden shears at the small engine repair place to be sharpened (gotta pick 'em up tomorrow).

I napped every day but yesterday. We have a mouse problem, so I finally scheduled to have someone give an estimate for work to seal the house against entry. [The previous vendor put down snap traps but never seemed to completely seal the entry points.] Then in the afternoon I had a work call and spent some time cleaning items to donate.

It's been a while since my last visit to a thrift store. I still like seeing what people are giving away; e.g., "smores makers" are still taking up shelf space, and most of the kitchen utensils were black plastic, probably from that study claiming that black plastic kitchen utensils cause cancer. I did a lot of shopping this week, and one thing I still believe is that there's entirely too much stuff in the world. If we stopped manufacturing mugs (beer, coffee, soup), I bet we wouldn't notice for a couple of years. Same thing for flimsy but ostensibly reusable tote/shopping bags and costume jewelry.

The other work call I attended this week was for our next alt-text pilot. This time we have a blind scientist who uses screen readers helping us evaluate the vendor's work, and the call was to meet her. She was very nice and kept thanking us for doing the pilot, which was a little embarrassing. It's only a step up from the least we could do. Still, it was nice to see a real reminder of why we should be making our content more accessible.

We also booked an actual vacation: we're going to Memphis in May for three days. We want to see Sun Studios and Stax Studios and possibly one of the music museums. We're staying at a hotel that has a vinyl lounge; we're hoping it's like the Tokyo record bar we visited, where talking is discouraged and the jacket of the album that's playing is displayed on the bar.

amycles posting in

addme

i used to be super active on livejournal, mainly in the icon community. i made a dreamwidth account as livejournal was fading, but i didn't really connect to the site and with irl changes i ended up leaving this part of the internet altogether. i've been reminiscing and have wanted to get back into "journaling", so i'm giving dreamwidth a proper go this time around.

name: laura

age: 30

i mostly post about: life updates and the occasional book review. i dealt with a lot of changes last year and a major loss at the end of january, so i'm navigating this new chapter (that sounds so corny) and just want to document the ups & downs as i experience them.

my posting schedule tends to be: for now, i'd say sporadic, maybe a few times a week.

my interests: reading, bookish content (new/upcoming releases, challenges, etc), horror, thanatology (see: Caitlin Doughty), arts/crafts, trying new recipes/cooking, hockey (nhl & pwhl), the sims 4, historical facts, theatre, concerts, cleaning/weekend reset videos (specific fandoms) lord of the rings, the boys, sailor moon, three days grace, prison break, jujutsu kaisen, tokyo revengers, schitts creek, supernatural, gundam seed, mcu

my dealbreakers are: aggressive or continuous political content; i'm well aware of what's happening in the world and i have no problem with people who want to discuss or vent, but i have no desire in befriending anyone who is consumed by politics (especially whatever trump is up to). anti-lgbt, conservatives/traditionalists, ableists.

before adding me, you should know: i have social anxiety; i have good days and bad days. i might come off as standoffish, but i promise i'm not. i love reading/hearing about other people's experiences and getting a glimpse into their lives. i'm just too nervous to approach them lol

dolorosa_12

I had to catch the bus home after work on Tuesday, instead of my regular train, but this longer, more frustrating journey was made somewhat enjoyable by the conversation two teenage boys were having behind me. They began the trip updating their respective mothers over the phone that they were going to be late home (with many repeated 'love you Mum! Yeah, love you Mum!' and so on), then pivoted to the epic online sleuthing they had undertaken when one of their friends claimed to have a new girlfriend but only provided photographic evidence of this ('It was so easy! All I had to do was reverse image-search the photo and it was obvious he'd just taken photos of a random girl on Instagram and Pinterest!'), then pivoted to the sort of inane philosophising that teenagers think is deep ('Religion is obviously just a tool for social control ... all wars in history were started because of religion — apart from economic wars'), and finally, having exhausted all other lines of conversation, started talking about how much they loved cheese and just naming different types of cheese ('Halloumi!' 'Gouda!' 'Do you know you can make your own mozzarella?' and so on).

I found the whole thing kind of endearing, and it certainly provided entertainment over the course of the 50-minute bus ride.

I never use headphones in public spaces as I like to stay alert, so I have overheard the most ridiculous things over the years, including:

A woman updating one of her friends about a family member who had just been released from prison

A guy spending the entire hour-long train ride from Cambridge to London instructing his letting agent on how to make a legal case for evicting a tenant from his property

A guy spending the entire Cambridge-London train ride talking through various complex financial market trades he was making

A young guy explaining to his girlfriend (I was sitting across from them on one of those sets of four seats around a table) that his afternoon had involved a) stealing a car, b) being chased by police as he attempted to steal said car, c) crashing the car in the police car chase and getting injured, d) the police attempting to take him to the emergency department at the hospital but refusing to go ('The car owner decided not to press charges, so I said to the police that if they weren't arresting me I didn't want to go with them to hospital') — all at absolute top volume such that the entire crowded carriage could hear every single word

I have also overheard so many specialist doctors call up their colleagues and convey huge amounts of sensitive patient information over the phone, in the reception area of our library, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a person sitting at a reception desk is actually a human being with functioning ears.

I find it absolutely excruciating to talk over the phone in public — anything more than arranging meeting times/places or letting someone know I'm running late and I'll basically immediately tell the person that I'll call them back when I'm at home — so it's always mind-boggling to me the amount of highly personal stuff that some people feel comfortable discussing at top volume in crowded public transport.

So, my question for this week's open thread: what is the strangest thing you've ever overheard on public transport?

sabotabby

Events, dear friends, have been piling up faster than I can write about them—personal tragedies, global horrors, and work conspiring to keep me at a pace where I have not yet emerged from under the weight of one massive project before I'm saddled with the next. Needless to say things are happening but I get approximately 15 minutes of laptop time a day if the subway cooperates and it's largely spent answering emails.

Anyway, on with the podcasts. This week's episode is from a new-to-me podcast, A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein. I heard him on Bad Hasbara and he was very funny and insightful, and his actual podcast doesn't disappoint. My favourite episode so far has been "She Had Elon's Baby. Then, Leopards Ate Her Face," featuring Ashley St. Clair and Juniper.

I didn't know the name off the top of my head but Ashley was one of those far-right grifters/pick-me girls who is very traditionally pretty and thus assumed that there was no need for feminism. She wrote an extremely transphobic children's book that I had actually heard of because it was on one of Queen Coke Francis's video essays*. The title of the episode is not precisely accurate, in that the leopards in question started gnawing Ashley's face before she gave birth, as she had started to turn away from her transphobic stance when she was pregnant with her second child.

You have questions. I also had questions. One of the reasons this particular episode is so good is that Matt handles everything as responsibly as anyone can. He has Juniper (the trans podcaster/editor who, among other accomplishments, popularized "goblin mode"), who was the one who engaged with Ashley as she made her turn away from the dark side. Neither one of them softball the conversation, laying the harms that Ashley did out very clearly, and questioning whether she has actually changed or whether this is another grift (for the record, neither of them conclude that it's a grift).

It's a hard listen because obviously it is. Trans people are being targeted for genocide around the world and especially in the US, and Ashley was one of its instigators. It asks hard questions: Can people change? Is the community that they harmed obligated to believe and accept those changes? What does it mean to make amends and reparations, or to build trust? What can we do to deradicalize people (note: Ashley's redemption arc seems to have started with queer and trans folks engaging her online, which I'm legitimately surprised at)?

Anyway it brought me a little bit of desperately needed hope so maybe it will help you too.

* Check her out if you do YouTube video essays. She's a drag queen who mainly covers culture war stuff and she's hilarious.

rejectomorph

It seems to be this time of day a lot anymore. I wake up near midnight and have to try to get my sleep-addled brain to work well enough to get my ass up, take a leak, pour a cup of orange juice, and get the computer working so I can post a brief journal entry before tomorrow comes crashing down on my head. Minimal wakefulness prevents all but the shallowest and most trivial thoughts.

But then that makes the best excuse, since my thoughts are rarely anything but shallow and trivial anymore. Maybe my subconscious knows what it's doing. Too bad that can't balance out the imbecility of my consciousness, but at least it's a disguise of sorts. I'm bearding for myself. Now that I think about it, that's pretty clever. Too bad clever is just TEMU smart.

Crap, what am I going to do for midnight breakfast?

dolorosa_12

I spent a delightful day working from home with the sunlight streaming in through all available (open!) windows, watching birds frolic around our new bird feeder. This latest batch of links has a similarly spring-like feeling — not all are cheerful and light-hearted, but there is a common theme of emerging into light and life.

The first three are all Ukrainian, sparked by the complicated emotions around the four anniversary of Russia's fullscale invasion, on 24th February:

The Kyiv Independent team — journalists, videographers, adminstrative staff and more — took readers behind the scenes to show the ingenuity and determination it took to survive this winter's Russian-inflicted energy crisis and carry on bringing their reporting to the world.

From Ukrainian Institute London, a panel discussion on 'culture as security'

And from chef and campaigner Olia Hercules, a video conversation with Dima Deinega, founder of an (excellent) UK-based Ukrainian vodka company, which ended up being one of the most life-affirming discussions I've experienced.

On other topics:

An interview in the Guardian about being a professional chef in Antarctica

Via

tozka, the Persephone Letter, which, to quote

tozka, They're subtle marketing, more about vibes, focused on sharing things similar to Persephone Books/the people who enjoy them then about blasting sales info or whatever. If I must be marketed to, I'd rather receive it in this manner: rambly, meandering newsletters or blog posts sprinkled with links to interesting things that give a fuller picture of the person or organisation behind it, rather than just a list of things to buy now.

(Incidentally, the Antarctica link came from a similar newsletter, this one from the Vanderlyle restaurant, which takes a similar approach.)

I think that's it for now.

rejectomorph

The possibility of rain that had been predicted for Wednesday gradually dribbled out of the forecasts, and we ended up with dryness and sun. The disappointment was somewhat offset by a change in the forecast for the next week, and the string of 80+ degree highs has been lowered to the high seventies, with only one 80 degree day. If it works out that way I consider it a fair tradeoff. We might be done with rain for the season, which is sad, but the local reservoirs are full enough that we're unlikely to get water restrictions this year. I'm not worrying about restrictions coming along next year, since I don't know if I'll even still be around then. That's one of the few perks of being really old, and I intend to take full advantage of it. After all, it might be the only one I actually get.

In lieu of rain I've been binging videos from AI artist Kelly Boesch. This AI stuff is guzzling all our energy and once they are made the damage is done, so I figure I might as well enjoy them, and I do enjoy these, as they are very weird. When the power goes out once and for all, I'll at least have the memory of what left us in the dark. Here's an example: A Very Unusual Town:

Watch on YouTube

lycomingst

Recently the toilet has been running and leaking. I have dealt with this before in another house. You need to replace the chain and flapper. Of course, the system was attached differently from the one I'd done before. Instead of just hooking on to another part, this was slipped over an end piece and you had to lift it over. I learned that on Youtube.I didn't have the hand strength to do that so I had to get out TOOLS. A box cutter, pliers, etc and so on. Finally got the old piece off and went to the store to get a new one.

I chose one, I do want to mention that I have to get on my knees to turn the water on and off, just to mention it. So it's installed and the noisy toilet is silent. I still have to shorten the chain to make it perfect, it's sort of jerryrigged now, and that will be fixed in the near future.

ioplokon

Sad you didn't get a chance to see OperaMania last year? Well, it's back! On May 8, we will once again see the stars of the Toronto opera stage square off against the Junction City Wrestling crew!

The original is genuinely one of the best nights of live entertainment I've ever been to. I'm so excited to see what they come up with for the next one! If you're in Toronto or could be in May, check it out!

sabotabby

It feels very strange and unpleasant to be making my regular book post under the circumstances. Nevertheless.

Just finished: A Drop Of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett. This was so much fun, and I'm hooked on the series. It's mostly a lighthearted absolutely nightmare fuel cosmic horror murder mystery, but as the afterword says, it's also kind of a commentary on fantasy's obsession with kings and nobles and what this means for our present political circumstances. Which is to say. Kings. Not a great idea. I disagree with Bennett re: what ASOIaF was trying to do but the book is a great example of how you can smuggle interesting politics in a rip-roaring narrative.

Currently reading: Lullabies For Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. I love everything she writes and meant to read her most well-known work ages ago but it ended up near the bottom of my physical TBR stack and I'm only now getting to it. This is the story of Baby, a little girl in Montreal whose father is a possibly-schizophrenic heroin addict. Does that sound depressing? Because it is. It's also very much a dark comedy, like it's genuinely fucking hilarious the more searingly awful Baby's life gets. Sometimes I just want fiction to fuck me up, and this does.

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The Family Ghost

March 2026

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an exercise in lying still...

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Today's poem

Hello!

52/37`1: Goals

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52/370: Heating

Six for gold

field of dreams

52/368-369: Feck

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Lockwood Chapters - 1st - 7th March 2026

time out

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Friday open thread: overheard on public transport

podcast friday

52/367: Sleepy Schlep

A linkpost for the northern spring

52/366: Dry

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OPERAMANIA: THE REMATCH!!!

Reading Wednesday

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March 2026

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