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It's Earth Day! I also missed yesterday, so here are two poems that go really well together, in my opinion. Variations on a theme!

( Third Rock from the Sun )

*

( On Earth As It Is On Earth )

scrubjayspeaks

For a while, as he signed an apartment lease that didn’t seem to have any sneaky clauses and visited a food pantry that didn’t seem to be trying to convert him to anything, his fear got worse instead of better. Where was the next conman, seeing an easy mark, or the next bully, seeing a helpless victim? It took a long time for him to accept that walking into the bakery looking scared and overwhelmed would get him offered a cup of tea on the house, all his fears just old wounds in this place, willingly tended by others.

---

LL#1386

celli

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

mxcatmoon

Written for:

threesentenceficathon
Title: Gordian Lotus
Fandom: Miami Vice
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: G
Words: 100
Characters: Sonny, Rico
Summary: Rico thinks Sonny needs to chill out. Sonny disagrees, for practical reasons.
Notes: The last of the 3SF fics I'd forgotten to post to my journal.
(Note: Me too, Sonny, me too!)
Prompt: Any, any, who or what gives you inner peace?

( Gordian Lotus )

Current Mood: busy

moon_custafer

Anyone hear of an indie label called Sarah Records, and/or of a band called Heavenly, from the early 1990s?

I’d never heard of them, although I see their singer, Amelia Fletcher, is important enough that another band have written a song about her:

musesfool

Today's poem:

Pyrocumulus
by Arthur Sze

Peony shoots rise out of the earth;

at five a.m., walking up the ridge,

I mark how, in April, Orion's left arm

was an apex in the sky, and, by May,

only Venus flickered above the ridge

against the blue edge of sunrise.

In daylight, a pear tree explodes

with white blossoms—no black-

footed ferret slips across my path,

no boreal owl stirs on a branch.

At three a.m., dogs seethed and howled

when a black bear snagged a shriveled

apple off a branch; and, waking out

of a black pool, I glimpsed how

fire creates its own weather

in rising pyrocumulus. Reaching

the ditch, I drop the gate: it's time

for the downhill pipes to fill,

time for bamboo at the house

to suck up water, time to see sunlight

flare between leaves before

the scorching edge of afternoon.

***

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Mets vs Twins on tv

ysabetwordsmith

Here are the content notes for "When You Learn to Read."

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

mxcatmoon

Written for:

threesentenceficathon
Fandom: Miami Vice
Title: First and Last
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: G
Words: 94
Summary: Sometimes it's difficult to figure out where we went wrong.
Prompt: Any, any, the first mistake

( First and Last )

Current Mood: accomplished

mxcatmoon

Written for:

threesentenceficathon
Title: Domestic Dance
Fandom: Miami Vice
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: Sonny/Rico
Words: 96
Summary: Just a typical morning in the kitchen
Prompt: Any, any, bagel with cream cheese

( Domestic Dance )

Current Mood: working

ysabetwordsmith

These are the character notes for "When You Learn to Read" Part 2: Bolivar Family.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

mxcatmoon

Written for

threesentenceficathon
Title: Hard When It’s Easy
Fandom: Miami Vice
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: G
Words: 92
Characters/Pairing: Sonny/Rico (but no one is named, so it can apply to any characters/ship where it fits, really).
Summary: Hard to take how easy it was for hearts to break.
Notes: The other day when going through my list of fics, I realized that I'd forgotten to post the last of my 3SF ficlets here and AO3. So, I'm fixing that by posting them now.
Prompt: any, any, it's hardest when it's easy

( Hard When It’s Easy )

Current Mood: productive

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #7047 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 15 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1006.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

mxcatmoon

Figured it's about time I posted an update for those interested. Details below the cut.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: okay

grrlpup

Current books:

– The Man Who Died Twice, second in the Thursday Murder Club series about a set of crime-solving friends in a retirement community. I found the first book in a Little Free Library shortly after a friend recommended it… and then I found the second book in a different Little Free Library the day after I finished the first book!

They give me a Golden Girls vibe but more sophisticated, I suppose like really good GG fic would be. And every so often a line slays me, like this when the team is gathered at Ibrahhim’s bedside reviewing CCTV footage on his laptop:

“And there’s the clue!”
The shortsighted lean farther forward, and the long-sighted lean farther away.

– Kevin Henkes’ brand-new picture book Is It Spring?

Betsy Bird’s excellent review

I think I read this ten times, while I was eating my lunch today. Once for the paper colors. Once for the rhythm (and I read it out loud too). Once for the pattern of text and boxes (with a two-page box when spring finally springs for real… so good). Once to see if everyone’s eyes are dots all the way through. And of course following the scarf, and flipping back and forth between multiple views of the yard. Just exquisite. I felt reluctant to put it on the back-to-the-library shelf and will probably pull it down and read it again before I return it.

– Best recently finished: Candace, the Universe, and Everything, by Sherri L. Smith. Older middle grade or younger YA. Time shenanigans involving a school locker and magpies doing their thing. Also intergenerational friendship among Black women, characters pursuing art and science, and shifting school friend groups where no one’s a villain forever. Reminded me of the elements I like best in Madeleine L’Engle.

This post originates at everyday though not every day. Comments welcome here or there.

canyonwalker

Ohio Waterfalls Travelog #22
Dublin, OH · Mon, 20 Apr 2026. 9pm

Today we did something a bit bonkers. After one last hike in the Hocking Hills area, at Rock Bridge Natural Preserve (details coming soon) we were wondering, "What should we do next?" And I suggested, "I have a wild hare of an idea. Let's go to Wheeling, West Virginia!" Why? Why not!

As I started driving north from the hike Hawk started looking up things to do in Wheeling. We figured at least we could have lunch there. But it'd be a long way to go for lunch. And by that I mean it'd be a long wait to eat lunch— 2:30pm or later! So we needed something else to justify the trip. 🤣

Of course, it wasn't until we were on a state highway again that Hawk even had signal to look this stuff up on her phone. So we were already much of the way to our decision point, the place to decide, "Do we turn east or west?", before she had anything.

"Well, we'll go through Zanesville [Ohio]," she said, "And it says one of the top things to do there is visit the hospital."

"Wait, the best thing to do in Zanesville is to get sick?" I asked.

"Uh, not the best thing," she said. "It's only, like, Number 9 on TripAdvisor's Top 10 list." 🤣

Hawk continued searching and found a historic suspension bridge over the Ohio River in Wheeling. That sounded interesting to me! I've loved bridges ever since I decided at, like, age 6 that I wanted to be a civil engineer. Years later I changed my primary passion to computer science but never lost my avocation for bridges. I even took a civil engineering class in college and won a class competition in bridge design.

So, yes, we drove all the way out to Wheeling, WV to see a bridge. I mean, we didn't just see it; we walked on it. And we stopped for lunch well before that. We bought short-order food at a Marathon gas station in Rushville. And we passed through Zanesville— twice!— without anybody requiring acute medical care. No head wounds this trip. Though I am assured that the hospital there is among the city's best qualities. 🤣

This evening, 300-plus miles of driving later, we are just outside of Columbus. We're here for two nights. Tomorrow we'll do a bunch of short hikes nearby; Tuesday we'll head to the airport to fly home.

greghousesgf

Yesterday my sister called me and said that when I come to Texas to see my family a week from tomorrow, because we live far apart and have missed a lot of holidays and birthdays, because I love the Beatles and my most recent birthday was the 64th one, they wanted to give me a Beatle themed birthday party, even though my actual birthday was two months ago. This friend of my sister's husband owns a local restaurant and they're going to have a Beatle cover band there! I'm super happy they're doing this although I kind of suspect at least part of the reason they're doing this is because they feel sorry for me because of L. leaving.

Current Music: the Chambers Bros

ysabetwordsmith

Here are the character notes for "When You Learn to Read" Part 1: Sanon Family.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

thawrecka

The Teen Dream (1149 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Jawbreaker (1999)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Courtney/Liz, Courtney/Fern, Fern Mayo/Liz Purr
Characters: Courtney Shayne, Fern Mayo
Additional Tags: toxic lesbians and mean bisexuals, Missing Scene, Post-Canon, late 90s homophobia, Mild Voyeurism, Dirty Talk
Summary:

Courtney Shayne plays vicious games.

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3236/

Thanks to differences in logging regulations, the messages actually turned out to be visible from the air.

https://xkcd.com/3236/

ruric

Almost a month since my last entry. So what's been going on?

Office move - my org started modernising our main building 18 months ago - they did 1st & 3rd floors. Now it's time for 2nd and 4th. We were supposed to be in our temporary space by 1 April LOOOOOOOL. Needless to say we packed all our shit, it was moved to new office space, but sign off on us occupying said space was delayed until Monday. So I'm behind with a lot of stuff as the things I needed to DO THINGS were inaccessible in the new space and then there was Easter.

Wales - I decamped to the cottage for Easter - and yes I did say to

ravurian "Would-you-come-to-my-cottage-this-Easter" IYKYK. Lovely time was had - we chilled out, ate good food and visited some artists studios and bought more art which neithervof us has enough wall space to display. The solo drive up was long (traffic and road works) and took around 8 hours but the cats behaved. While away I watched Heated Rivalry (again - I'm well into double figures now in the space of 6 weeks), spent an afternoon and evening watching the EmptyNetters reaction podcasts which were delightful, especially the last live reaction pod followed by a summary. Watching 3 straight dudes talk themselves into the middle of the Kinsey scale was awesome. I read about 1 million words of fic (30,000+ Heated Rivalry fics on A03 and increasing at around 2k per week) and the quality of what I've read/am reading is astonishing. Also slept for 9 hours a night. The drive home was much better than the drive up.

Gigs and exhibition- Christian Kane was over for a con last weekend - didn't go 'cos they'd sold out of the good tix and not really convenient timing for my friends and I. But he played a gig last Thursday at the O2 Islington which was very well attended so off we went to that instead - which was a lot of fun and a reminder that I do like live music. Getting home turned into a bit of an adventure as it wasn't clear that Angel tube closed at 10pm for track repairs. Next day we met up for lunch (Wagamama in Battersea), a quick look around the Power Station development and shops and then we hit up the Rameses exhibition - which was good. Spent a couple of hours there - took loads of pics of the Egyptian jewellery. Then coffee and cake before we all headed home. Two days of socialing left me wrecked for the weekend though so all I did was nap and read.

Work - is pants - too much to do, not enough time or support so I'm pulling some very long days in the hope that it will give me some breathing space in May. Ha!

Heated Rivalry - yep still way down THAT particular rabbit hole. A lot of the fandom is happening on Threads and I'm there on two group chats (where the squee seems to live) as the people I know are either over it, not interested in the wider fandom (disappointed face) or have not seen it - though I'm working on an office colleague. I forgot how much fun it can be to be in a very active fandom with new filming on the horizon, and a new set of episodes coming and with a cast who are involved in lots of new projects too. I thought I was done with writing until last week when that muscle twitched again. Also the last 10 days have been a TIME to be in the fandom. With the leads stratospheric rise not only is there new TV to anticipate but all the other stuff. Connor's Verizon ad dropped, then Hunter's Laufrey music vid and Hunter's Peleton ad, Rachel and Jacob's panel at the bookcon, Connor's Tiffany dinner/campaign, a ridiculous amount of stunningly artistic photos of various cast members surfacing and then finally the show was announced as a Peabody winner today.

The fandom lost its mind.

The majority of posts have been a collective version of "I am ded, you have killed me", super thirsty posts about the ridiculous amount of new stuff realeased which absolutely shows smart brands and smart boys taking a massive punt at toxic masculinity and leaning knowingly hard into what they are selling, intermingled with detailed media literate analyseis of the books/TV series - so much content on Thread/Insta for that, rabid speculation about S2 and a potential S3 and what other projects are being announced. And then there's more fanfivs, edits, new fic and on and on.

Considering the rest of the world/news is depressingly fucking awful all day/every day and I seriously don't think we'll make it as a society through the next decade it's pretty much saving my sanity to get home in the evening a dive into HR and try to forget everything else for a few hours.

And on that joyful note I'm off to watch a couple of fanvids and see if either of the three huge WIPs I'm reading has dropped a new chapter!

How you are doing?

kat_lair

***

Title: Desert Flower
Author:

kat_lair
Fandom: Cobra Starship/Bandom
Character: Gabe Saporta
Tags: Drabble, Character Study, Desert
Rating: G
Word count: 100

Summary: The venom bleeds out with the night.

Author notes: Spring defiance from under the crushing forces of capitalism = a drabble a day in April. This one for

pushkin666 who provided Gabe and the title as prompts.

Desert Flower on AO3

( Desert Flower )

***

cosmolinguist

Welp, the appointment didn't happen!

D and I clicked the link for the video consult and signed in and everything and then nothing happened!

D tried to call them, got an automatic message that said we'd called outside their operating hours or whatever, but then said they were open until 5pm on Wednesdays and it was just past 3pm. Very strange.

So he sent an e-mail but of course we've heard nothing back; I didn't expect we would until tomorrow.

It made for a strange afternoon, having to go back to work. I wasn't up to doing any thinky work but I had admin work to do so it was good to catch up on that.

Then I took Teddy for a walk, he was so excited to see me after a couple days where I couldn't make it or I was not needed. It's chilly out because it's so windy, but it was a sunny day and the sky was wonderfully blue.

I wanted to make dinner but V suggested putting a frozen meal from the freezer in the oven and we did that. Thai green curry, so I made rice to go with it. Even though I wasn't hungry, I ate mine pretty quickly.

I listened to a podcast interview with Dick Bremer, and had a bunch of feelings because it was the first time I'd heard his voice since he called whichever was the last regular-season game I watched in 2023.

D had gotten me a present, intending to be a "well done for getting through the thing" but it arrived this evening even after the thing had not happened. I opened it anyway: it's an amazing bottle of gin called Moonshot because each batch of Moonshot Gin likely has some molecules in it that came in contact with a rock that was once actually on the moon. The botanicals in this gin were freeze-dried by being sent towards space -- not really "space" because the Kármán line is a further 80 km up. There they were "exposed to extremely low pressures" the label copy says, adding one of the sillier phrases I've read off a bottle: "(after 18 or 19km the pressure is already so low that water and fluids in the body boil at body temperature!)"

Luckily the gin also tastes nice. It's a gimmick but it's worked extremely well on me, and it's lovely to feel so looked-after as to get a surprise present in acknowledgement of a big thing.

Even if we're no closer to the big thing than we were before.

magid

Today is Earth Day, and tomorrow the weekly (USian) drought monitor updates (link is to the whole US; I generally look only at MA). We’re still in drought, albeit not as badly as some weeks ago, with slow progress as we do get some precipitation.

I was thinking, though, that while we can’t do much about what the weather brings us, there are some things that humans do control that can mitigate (or not), in how we use our spaces.

One example is that paved parking lots mean the skywater we do get is runoff, rather than being absorbed where it lands. If too much of the environment is paved, that can mean flash floods even when the absolute amount of water wouldn’t predict that. I saw that up close and personal years ago when a sudden storm left parts of Somerville underwater (I slogged through water that was half-way up my calves to get to my volunteer shift that day), while Cambridge, which has more unpaved space, was totally fine. (Some parts of Somerville tend towards having the spaces around various houses and triple deckers paved, so there’s no yard maintenance. Which means other challenges instead.)

Another example is how so many places have ‘drained the swamp’ (or other types of wetlands). Fewer mosquitos tend to be a win, but really, there’s a reason for wetlands in a lot of places: they act as sponges that can absorb a lot of water if necessary/available, then release it slowly over time, so it all gets somewhere useful.

A third example is that when soil is reduced to dirt, there’s a much greater possibility of flooding and erosion, because the soil has been degraded so much (from pesticides, fungicides, even commercial fertilizers, also repeated ploughing that disrupts many underground systems, etc.) that it’s more an inert growing medium, rather than a dynamic biosystem with not only plant roots, various underground dwellers (earthworms among them), and microbes, but also mycorrhizal fungi that make soil healthy and able to use the water that comes. As with so many other things, diversity leads to better soil health, leading to more resilient systems, and food with more nutrition.

The world feels like it’s all in flames. Given that, let’s think about rebuilding with systems that aren’t wholly extractive, but regenerative of the planet.

Some related reading:
Paradise Lot, Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates
Wilding, Isabella Tree
Grass, Soil, Hope, Courtney White
Dirt to Soil, Gabe Brown
The One-Straw Revolution, Masanobu Fukuoka
Deeply Rooted, Lisa M. Hamilton
Farming While Black, Leah Penniman
A Call to Farms, Jennifer Grayson
The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer

james_davis_nicoll

The complete Voidrunner's Codex Full Digital Box Set, the spacefaring expansion from EN Publishing for the Level Up! tabletop roleplaying game and Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.

Bundle of Holding: Voidrunner's Codex

badly_knitted posting in

get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.

This Week's Question: Does your crafting change with the seasons, certain crafts at certain times of the year?

If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

oursin

What I read

Finished The Tortoiseshell Cat, which was Royde-Smith's first novel, and rambles around a bit before it gets going, and the protag is really somewhat unbelievably naive about the world and its ways, but it's still pretty good and readable. Okay, there is character who turns out to be a Predatory Lesbian with a backstory of relationships with other women with masculinised names, and it got namechecked by Lilian Faderman for being bad representation of the period (1920s) but there is a certain ambivalence (VV is awful but is the sapphic desire itself bad? Gill seems to feel a certain reciprocity.). And there is a certain amount of evidence that Royde-Smith had leanings at least, and did write another novel with v sympathetic lesbian lead. Anyway, quite aside from Here Is A 1920s LGBTQ Pioneer Who Is Not Radclyffe, would read more of her if it was only available.

Some while ago picked up Le Guin's The Books of Earthsea omnibus as a Kobo deal and while I think I have all except maybe some short stories on my shelves or somewhere, it's handy to have them all together with Ursula's commentaries. Made my way through the initial trilogy, found the narrative style rather reminded me of the various myths and legends recounted in works of my youth (and probably hers too). I do wish, see earlier post, she had had some contact with Mitchison's works but I don't know if they were even published in N Am.

On the go

Took a break from going straight on to Tehanu to do my re-read of Dorothy Richardson, The Tunnel (Pilgrimage, #4) (1919) - the text I originally downloaded from Project Gutenberg was no longer playing nicely with the ereader but I downloaded the most recent version and it's fine. This is the one that is embedded in bits of London very very familar to moi - even if Euston Station looks quite different these days.

Up next

Probably back to Le Guin and Earthsea.

ysabetwordsmith

This poem is spillover from the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from

dialecticdreamer,

rix_scaedu, and

jake67jake. It also fills the "Somebody at the Door" square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by

janetmiles. It belongs to the Big One thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It is the second in a triptych, between "Where You Find Light" and "No Faster or Firmer Friendships."

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

leanwellback

the gods do not bleed
what flows through their immortal veins
is something primal
you can't get blood from a stone either
so when the earth opens up
under the pounding fists of rain
the smell that issues from the wound
could only be likened
to ichor

*

I fell behind because of work and my brain not playing ball, but rest assured I do plan on catching up and finishing all of the prompts.

wickedgame posting in

nexticon

DOC - Nelle Tue Mani

https://images4.imagebam.com/a0/e6/7f/ME1CGM7F_o.png

ysabetwordsmith

Bruce the Parrot Landed Atop the Pecking Order, Without a Beak

In 2021, a disabled parrot named Bruce made headlines worldwide for creating his own prosthetic beak. He didn’t stop there: Scientists reported on Monday that Bruce has now become the alpha male of his group.

And he did it by learning to joust.

I had heard about the prosthetic beak, but the jousting is new. :D

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and warm.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few house finches. Red-winged blackbirds are singing in the trees. I've seen others at the drainage ditch, so I wonder how long these will stick around.

I put out water for the birds. Honeybees have been draining the birdbaths.

I set out my small flats of seedlings.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I planted 4 snapdragons and a yellow-and-orange lantana in the barrel garden. I realized that I forgot to pick up the firecracker plant for hummingbirds that I meant to get yesterday. >_< I may get back to DeBurh's another day, or somewhere else might have it.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I planted a pineapple sage besides the barrel garden.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I planted a Yellow Pear tomato, a Santa (a red grape tomato), a Cherokee Purple (a slicing tomato), a Mr. Stripey (a sweet yellow-and-red slicer), and an Old German (a slicer, mostly yellow with a bit of orange or red inside) in the new picnic table garden.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I planted 4 'Safari Yellow' marigolds around the 'Santa' tomato. I need to watch for more marigolds; my attempts at sprouting them from seeds didn't produce many this year.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- We picked up sticks from the west end of the south lot, so that can be mowed later today. There is a big patch of ground there which is either bare or growing weeds from having the big branch on it for several years. So it needs to be mowed close, then raked and sown with grass seed. Friday looks like rain.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I watered the newly planted things.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I buffed the apothecary cabinet, so that part is done. A couple of the hanging pegs on the bottom are loose, so I want to put wood glue on those before we hang it.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I planted a fennel, a sweet marjoram, a curry plant, and a dill in the large trough pot on the old picnic table garden.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I raked the west end of the south lot.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 4/22/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I planted the Forever Purple heuchera in the forest garden and watered it.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

osprey_archer

Books I've Given Up On This Week

I regret to admit (or rather admit without regret) that I got deeply bored about a quarter of the way through Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, and have therefore taken it back to the library. Sorry, Jean-Paul! This is simply not a season of my life where I am interested in you.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

While looking for more Penelope Farmer books, as one does, I discovered that the author of Charlotte Sometimes also occasionally moonlighted as a translator from Hebrew. Specifically, she and Amos Oz teamed up to translate Oz’s book Soumchi, a wistful childhood journey through British-occupied Jerusalem between the world wars.

This is an adult book about children rather than a children’s book - the tip-off lies in the prologue, a melancholy reflection about how everything is changing all the time which is very “adult looking back at childhood.” A gentle period piece about a boy with a massive crush on his classmate Esthie and also absolutely zero common sense, as evidenced by the fact that he keeps making trades where he is fairly obviously getting the worse end of the deal.

Also continuing my Vivien Alcock explorations with A Kind of Thief, a contemporary novel about a girl whose father is arrested for theft. But before he’s marched off by the police, he manages to sneak her the information to pick up a bag at the railroad station. Does receiving these presumably stolen goods make her… a kind of thief?

I think Alcock’s work is stronger (or at least more tailored to my interests) when she’s exploring a fantastical premise. This is fun but not something I would suggest seeking out unless you’re an Alcock completist. (If you are an Alcock completist, I do own a copy and I would be happy to send it to a new home.)

Also zipped through Dorothy Gilman’s Kaleidoscope, the sequel to The Clairvoyant Countess, which I probably should have read first as Kaleidoscope is chock full of spoilers for the earlier book. On the other hand, I’ll probably have forgotten all the spoilers by the time I mosey around to The Clairvoyant Countess, so it’s fine.

Always love Gilman’s older heroines. This book is aptly named, a kaleidoscope of different fractured glimpses of other people’s lives, some of which appear once and some of which are threaded throughout the book. No strong through-line but lots of fun little interweaving stories.

What I’m Reading Now

Grace Lin’s Chinese Menu, a lavishly illustrated compilation of the legendary origin stories of many classic Chinese dishes. Just about the embark on the story of spring rolls.

What I Plan to Read Next

I know I keep saying I’m going to read E. F. Benson’s Queen Lucia, but I’m going to read Queen Lucia for real this time.

omens posting in

writethisfanfic

we have reached mid-week!

Poll #34509

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

View Respondents

What are you working on today?

View Answers

Writing
4 (57.1%)

Editing
2 (28.6%)

Researching
1 (14.3%)

Something else
0 (0.0%)

Nothing today
1 (14.3%)

maju

Recently I've had a couple of mysterious calls from some place called Advanced Radiology Consultants about a supposed appointment I'm supposed to have with them, which I know nothing about. When they called just now I had Call Assist (by Google) screen the call and the caller texted that it was about scheduling an appointment. On the screen were three buttons: answer, cancel, or reschedule, so I clicked on cancel and a message came back "cancelling referral". None of it makes any sense to me, but I'm hoping I won't get any more of these calls until or unless I talk to my Primacy Care nurse about a necessary test.

This morning I got out of my comfort zone and drove over to Costco (about 10 miles/16 km away) to pick up a membership card. I've been thinking about how I need new hearing aids and Costco seems to offer good audiology services but to access those I need a Costco membership. So now I have the membership card and now I have to schedule a hearing test. While I was out I went to WholeFoods (basically next door to Costco) and bought myself some home fries and sausages for lunch. Yum. They were so good I now wish I'd bought enough for tomorrow's lunch as well.

I've been so sequestered here over the winter that it felt like a big deal to drive to Costco; I'm quite familiar with a small area of about 2 or 3 miles radius around this house, but I'm not very familiar with anything further than that. However, the drive was fine, and now that the weather has improved I think I should start taking myself to places further away every so often.

yourlibrarian posting in

everykindofcraft

How have things been going crafts-wise? Anything to share?

What sort of storage or tools do you find particularly useful for your work? Has your use of these evolved or do you still use the same items you started out with?

sumana_feed

Posted by Sumana Harihareswara

http://harihareswara.net/posts/2026/tab-roundup/

Three bits and bobs that I've appreciated lately:Victoria Danclan's adaptation of Thomas Colthurst's sorting game. Caution that, if you really like recognizing patterns, putting things into categories, trivia, and similar stuff, this game is likely …

http://harihareswara.net/posts/2026/tab-roundup/

rugessnome

This semester I've been in a thermodynamics class that introduced the extremely generically named concept of quality: the ratio of mass in vapor phase to mass in liquid phase in a mixture at the ~boiling point.

I've also been reading Underwood Dudley's Numerology: What Pythagoras Wrought, a disapproving but light-hearted commentary on numerology, where at one point he introduces a similarly generic name and concept, for the context of dealing with the mutterings of charletans: content, or the probability of people disagreeing with a statement. Where a statement resulting in unanimous agreement such as "You regularly drink something containing water" would have a content of 0, and "You are Carl Frederick Gauss" (his example!) is so improbable as to be approximately 1.

And, juxtapose this with my randomly getting back into the_miracle_aligner, who does song covers in mostly ancient languages, but who chose "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" to put into his own tribal language, with a remark about what but an extremely relatable song?

aaand furthermore, the idea that what we know about other people's inner lives is inevitably curated...

eta: the point I am circling around is that we are privy to others' misery (and indeed any other emotional state) only inasmuch as that emotion is expressed to us, and our perception of the ubiquity of a given emotion is based on how much whatever our social circle+media has expressed that emotion.

"content" is a rather inapt or cruel lens for this idea, but something like its... complement (1-content) might be a better expression of the idea that you are likely not alone in a given emotion...

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: running up that hill midEng + heaven knows I'm miserable now in ?

purplecat

Reading: The Crawling Terror by Mike Tucker. Twelth Doctor and Clara novel. I've only just started it but its already obvious that it's Giant Bugs in Rural England.

Listening: Just finished an episode of the Machine Ethics Podcast with which I have a somewhat frustrated relationship. It's proved very useful for keeping tabs on the AI Ethics landscape, but there are definitely times I want to shake the interviewer or interviewees, and a couple of times I've just had to nope out entirely because SO MUCH NONSENSE. This was a slightly odd episode, the interviewee had clearly reached out, requesting an interview in order to talk about/promote her biocomputing company. Clearly outside of the interviewer's comfort zone, and hard to know to what extent this was crossing the line from science communication into advertising.

Watching: Three weeks late we realise Have I Got News for You has started up again. It does what it does and we're the target demographic. I laughed a lot at Armando Iannuci's exasperation at people claiming that Winston Churchill was being replaced by a badger.

mrissa

I hope you're not tired of first contact stories, because I've gone and written another one. Apparently this is what's on my mind lately? Anyway here's Waiting for Them in Nature Futures, go, read, enjoy!