agonyaunt | Member Posts

I don't think I mentioned getting a new phone last month. I very much enjoyed my tiny Jelly Star for a long time: it was very good for making it unsatisfying to scroll while out and about, and instead listen to more music and pay more attention to where I was. But eventually it started to be actually annoying and I did some thinking and looking at different phones, and ended up with a Motorola Razr folding phone. Still small by default! Still easy to prioritise music over scrolling! But much easier to do messaging, emails, etc when I need to.

As a surprise bonus, I have found that having a decent camera and a screen I can clearly see the results on means I'm taking more photos. It also has a neat timer function, and the folding phone is easy to set up to take photos at distances longer than my arm.

Here is a result taken this morning: me wearing another new possession, my CUIHC fleece. It is soft and cozy and I adore it, I've had it since Monday and love it unreasonably. I want to wear it all the time.

conuly

If you're actually writing for children, especially young children, then I guess you don't want to scare them off - but if you're writing for adolescents or adults you can afford to be honest.

So here's the thing. Every book or story in which a character gets glasses for the first time - or the second if their first pair is painfully out of date - emphasizes how clear everything is and how they can see so much detail that they had no idea they were missing. And yes, that's a thing. None of them point out that it's a thing that can be less "wondrous" and more "disorienting and distracting" until you've gotten used to seeing that much detail.

None of them mention that if your prescription is strong enough - especially if there's astigmatism involved - your perception will be wonky and you'll have a hard time judging how close and far things are for a day or two.

Definitely none of them mention that you will absolutely get eye strain every time you get a new prescription, and possibly headaches or nausea to accompany it. It goes away, again, in a day or two, but until it does you'll feel like you're cross-eyed at all times. (And with children, every year is a new prescription. They grow, which means their eyeballs grow, and just like that growth is unlikely to suddenly give them perfect vision if they already were nearsighted, it's also unlikely to keep them exactly where they were before.)

Absolutely none of them point out that if you've never worn glasses before you'll have to spend the aforementioned day or two learning how to not see the frames. This is also true if your old frames were much bigger than the new ones, but that, at least, is less likely to apply to children - their faces grow along with the rest of them, necessitating larger frames, so even if they choose a smaller overall style with the new pair the fact that it fits properly may even out.

Moving past the realm of accurate fiction writing, children really should have their first optometrist appointment, at the latest, in the summer before first grade (so, aged 5 or 6 years old). Ideally, they'll have it before they start school, at age 2 or 3, but you can't convince people on that point. They should have a new appointment every year until the age of 20 or so, or every two years if every year really is unfeasible, even if you don't think you see the signs of poor vision. They won't complain that they can't see, because they'll just assume that their vision is normal. This is true even if they wear glasses - you never notice how bad your eyes have gotten until you get a new prescription, and then it's like "whoa".

The screening done at school or at the doctor's office is imperfect at best. You really want the optometrist.

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dine

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lucymonster

I've been "rereading" by way of the audiobook narrated by Andy Serkis. He's a brilliant narrator, with two caveats:

His singing is juuust bearable when he's doing a very low voice (like for Aragorn) but excruciating otherwise. I've had to skip past some of the poetry on these grounds.
Or really 1a: his singsong Tom Bombadil voice captured the character in his purest essence, which is to say, it's so smug and jolly that the first sound of it made me want to punch something. I'm not a habitual Bombadil skipper (though admittedly that's more due to stubborn pride than any real appreciation for Tolkien's vision in those chapters) but Serkis' Bombadil defeated me utterly.

As of writing this post I'm about an hour off the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, with the sundering of the fellowship poised to come crashing down on my head. Legolas has been my favourite character since before the movies made him hot, but this time I'm finding myself caught up in the story of Frodo like never before. His yearning for the Shire and desperately reluctant acceptance of his calling have really touched me this time through. I've been especially caught on the moment, small as it is, when having been incapacitated by the Nazgûl blade he endures his agony in silence as his friends carry him to safety, so mindful he is already of the burden and danger he's causing them. When I first read The Lord of the Rings I was too young to know what war was, and I've been reading it my whole life the way I first read it then, as first and foremost a fantasy adventure, full of elves and magic and great quests. For some reason this time it is finally coming home to me how much this is a story of the Great War, and how much Frodo embodies the ordinary conscript: terrified, untrained, barely able to comprehend the grand events unfolding around him but determined to do his duty and empowered through unthinkable ordeals by the deep love and loyalty he has for his friends.

LotR was my second foray into transformative fandom, after getting hooked on fic via Harry Potter and Mugglenet. I haven't been active in the fandom since I was fifteen or so, and fortunately my "contributions" were all published on dead or forgotten sites under a different username - I remember writing one or two "tenth fellowship member" self-inserts, and something godawful about Legolas having a doomed romance with a mortal OC, and something even more godawful about Haldir (for some reason???) battling anorexia nervosa. (Edit after a pause and some googling: Oh god, the whole site that hosted all my teenage dreck has been re-archived on AO3. It's all still out there! Some of it still getting kudos and comments! The internet truly is forever.) Most of the fic I was reading back then is probably of a kind and thus better forgotten, but I'd like to link a couple of old favourites that have stuck with me over the years.

While the Ring Went South... by Thundera Tiger is a scrupulously canonverse fic slotted into the two week journey between Rivendell and Caradhras. It's genfic, full of adventures and largely centred on the rivalry/developing friendship between Legolas and Gimli. I reread some of it not that far back and it lived up to all my fond memories. The sequel, During a Journey in the Dark, doesn't seem to have made it to AO3 but is still available on Stories of Arda.

Celebdil-Galad and Tinlaure wrote a large volume of intensely smarmy, whumpy Legolas & Aragorn torturefic. I have not reread any of these since my teens, and I don't intend to, since I doubt my adult self will be able to reconnect with the emotions they once provoked even if they turn out to have been brilliantly written masterpieces. More likely, they were written by kids a couple of years older than me at the time and with commensurate skill. But I still remember them fondly.

vass

Books
Nearly finished Evelyn Araluen's 2025 poetry book The Rot. It's very good. I keep thinking of people I know who would appreciate it, and wanting to shove the book at them and say "here, look". (

sovay, you're one of them.) Depression, colonialism, girlhood, death, hauntology, Country, survival.

Listened to Margaret Killjoy's narration of Katherine Mansfield's short story 'A Cup of Tea'. Margaret gave a little context about the story afterwards, including that the main character was thought to be based on Mansfield's cousin, also a writer, whom Margaret herself hadn't heard of. I looked her up afterwards: Elizabeth von Arnim, and went WHUT, Elizabeth and her German Garden? I haven't actually read it, and am not sure how I knew about it, just that it was on my radar. Mansfield's story is simultaneously scalpel-sharp and more merciful than it might have been: the story doesn't attempt to puncture the protagonist's saviour fantasy, or allow it to go as wrong as it could have done, but does make clear in every detail how entirely it is a self-serving saviour fantasy, how entirely she's disregarding the needs, safety, boundaries, and basic consent of the woman she's trying to help. (I thought of the scene in chapter 6 of What Katy Did in which Katy and Clover kidnap an Irish child from her parents and lock her in their attic because they want to "adopt" her.)

Went to the library and borrowed the second Asterix book, having not really given Asterix a chance since I was too young to have any historical context (plus the only one we had in the house was missing several pages, possibly by my own actions at a far younger age.)

Comics
Really feeling for Dina in Dumbing of Age right now. The part about her and Becky is sad and believable, but the part that hit me right where I live was "now even my room is not my own. It's been... ransacked. Strangers have touched... everything." Same fucking autism. I would be out of my fucking mind.

Fandom
Working on my claim for Fanoa'ary, the next Lays server event.

Games
Redactle and Squardle with

kaberett, cryptic crosswords with

shehasathree.

Little puzzle games on my phone: Breakout 71 (breakout with many possible upgrades to unblock, with a lot of flexibility in possible builds) and Tessel, a tile game in which one rotates multicoloured tiles to match the colours, creating enclosed areas of a single colour. I tend to get way too engrossed in this kind of game and spend too long on it, so I like very much that neither of these two are gamified beyond "actually being a game": no ads, no freemium, no nudging to play at a particular time or for a particular length of time. They're very pausible.

Tech
No progress on desktop problems yet: I'm working on paying down some technical debt on my phones before I try more intensive desktop troubleshooting. In the meantime, no Hollow Knight for me.

Crafts
Finished framing/backing a cross-stitched item which I had intended to give

bookgirlwa for her birthday in 2025. Now to wrap it up and send it to her.

No weaving progress yet.

Garden
Two ripe tomatoes (pear-shaped, cherry form factor.)

Cats
Suspicious scab on Ash's nose seems to be healing up okay. *touch wood*

Nature
After a week of more moderate summer weather, we're heading into another heat wave. I hate hot weather, and physically don't deal well with it, but my biggest concern here is fire. Some of the fires from the last heatwave are still burning. The politicians are fighting about the CFA's funding (and yeah, they've been underfunded for a long time and have ageing equipment and an ageing volunteer force, and due to the governments' (plural but including ours) inaction on climate change, the fires they're fighting are getting more numerous and more severe) and there's a distinct scent of manufactured grassroots blame for the Labor state government (and. Like. I don't like Jacinta Allan either! Her authoritarian leanings concern me. But that doesn't mean the opposition would be better, or that a lot of her critics aren't misogynistic or conspiracy-theorists in distinctly Sky News flavours.) Which political digression I find easier to think (grumble) about than the fires themselves. The people and animals harmed already, the likelihood of more and worse in the next week. (And also, personally: the stress of managing my own potential evacuation in a situation where the danger zone is all over the state, my brain's in a constant loop of "but other people have it worse" and it's too hot to think.)

Current Events
It's bad. It's all so bad.

adafrog

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magid

If vampires weren’t tall and thin, but rather short and squat, would they be hemogoblins?

This question brought to you by the color red: I had bloodwork done this morning.

kaberett

Saw the Child! Was given a Very Important Solar System Biscuit.
Successfully slogged through a Whole Entire Exercise Routine, thanks be to company, and only tried to fall over for balance reasons rather than presyncope reasons. The Socks Continue Good. (We shall leave aside the part where my watch firmly told me I should start winding down for bed right before I began it...)
A has indulged me to the tune of staying up late (post-wiggles and once we have finished our takeaway, which we have) so that the bread I did not manage to bake earlier in the day will be Ready To Be My Breakfast.
Brain was willing to put down sudoku and actually read some book today! I am a bit closer to finishing a reread and embarking on the new thing!
It feels like I might actually be able to fall asleep in reasonable time today. Goodnight. <3

ysobel

Back in 2015 I wrote an anti-ode to prednisone. Last night my brain came up with another verse, so I'm posting the revised version for posterity.

(Youtube version of the original is here)

Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
How fucked-up are your side-effects!
You make my mood go here and there
And make me sweat, like, everywhere
Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
How fucked-up are your side-effects!

Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
You make me so unhappy
Because I'm hungry all the time
I can't think of a proper rhyme
Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
You make me so unhappy

Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
I really dislike taking you
The anti-inflammation's great
But all the rest is cause for hate
Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
I really dislike taking you

Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
I can't wait til I'm done with this
You taste like shit, and what's more wrong
You made me filk this stupid song
Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
I can't wait til I'm done with this

rmc28

Heated Rivalry is on this year's Canada Reads longlist.

wychwood

( 163. At the Feet of the Sun - Victoria Goddard ) These books are just a delight; I will definitely be reading more Goddard.

( 164. Murder in the Marginalia - Julie Ecker ) I feel a bit mean about it, given that I got this for free, but I think ultimately this just isn't my genre.

( 165. The Big Four - Agatha Christie ) Christie really needed to stay away from the Dramatic Spy Plots.

( 166. Peace Company, 168. These Green Foreign Hills, and 170. The Mountain Walks - Roland J Green ) If you like non-ultra-right-wing milSF you can definitely do worse than these books!

( 167. Hemlock & Silver - T Kingfisher ) This was probably one of the more disappointing Kingfishers for me, sadly. But fortunately I bought it on a 99p deal and not full price!

( 169. The Frangipani Tree Mystery and 171. The Betel Nut Tree Mystery - Ovidia Yu ) I'm enjoying this series! Will have to read more of them.

( 172. Odds Against - Dick Francis ) Just as fun as I was hoping, based on his rep!

( 173. Starcruiser Shenandoah: Squadron Alert - Roland J Green ) I'm sad that I wasn't as into this as the Peace Company, but I fully intend to finish my series re-read.

( 174. Unnatural Magic - C M Waggoner ) This is very different from the other Waggoner I've read; not bad, but I don't know that I would have gone for a second if I'd read this one first.

( 175. Provenance - Ann Leckie ) A delightful heist adventure; I don't need a sequel to this, but I like to think that Tic and Garal and Ingray and Taucris are all off living their best lives and hanging out a lot.

( 176. The Coming-of-Age of the Chalet School - Elinor M Brent-Dyer ) A decent addition to the series, but not particularly exciting.

raven

A very little story, about not very much.

paper lanterns, one after another (4094 words) by raven
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Heated Rivalry (TV)
Relationships: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Characters: Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov, Yuna Hollander
Additional Tags: Obon, Japanese Culture

It occurs to Ilya that he doesn't belong here. But then, this is a necessary migration.

oursin

So, at long last, I finally have an email address associated with My New Academic Position (this has been A Saga to do with their system upgrade).

I have also achieved reader's card for library of former workplace (spat out from the bowels of their system with A Very Old Photo of Yrs Truly).

And went and looked at the items I wanted to check, and found that lo, I was right and they did NOT have anything pertinent, as I had in fact hoped they would not. Though I had hoped to look, for another thing, at a couple of closed stack items and discovered that these cannot be ordered on a day's notice INFAMY I am sure I recall the times when there were regular deliveries throughout the day. Not actually critical, but irksome. (Also irksome was that I moaned about this on bluesky and got various responses that had no relevance at all to research libraries, in the UK, in particular this one.)

I then managed to get a digital passport photo at one of the photobooths on Euston station and have applied for a new passport, as mine is well out of date and I seem to keep seeing things that want 'government ID' to verify WHO I AM (over here, making like Hemingway....) so thought this was probably the way to go.

Also this is a trivial thing but in the course of my perambs of the day I walked past the statue of Trim, and his human.

In the niggles department, I did that thing of putting my phone down in place I never usually put it and flapping about trying to find it.

The lockers at the library have really annoying electronic locks.

Printer playing up a bit again. Though I think this really is that one has to let it mutter and sulk for a bit between turning it on and actually trying to print anything.

js_thrill

Today's song is Love Cuts the Strings

Watch on YouTube

It turns out we have hit a song where I have heard this song before, many times, much sooner than March. During the early part of the pandemic, the Mountain Goats released a two volume (later four volume, and later still five volume) live session recording of the band playing (they had also live-streamed the performance over the internet so people could watch at a time when concerts and tours had been canceled and live music was a real rarity). I've listened to Jordan Lake Volumes 1 and 2 hundreds of times, maybe more than a thousand, and Love Cuts The Strings is right between two of my favorite tracks on volume 2: My Little Panda and International Small Arms Traffic Blues. The former is a touching song about a parent's love for their child (I had a vague memory that it was about Darnielle's son, specifically, but couldn't confirm this), and the latter is part of the Alpha couple series.

And yet, despite being sandwiched between two songs that I listened to a huge number of times, this song hasn't stuck with me. Darnielle says in the annotations that it is his favorite of the songs off the 7" record that it was first on, and that at the time, his faster songs were his better songs. As you can tell from my preference for My Little Panda and International Small Arms Traffic Blues, I don't necessarily feel that way (though he also says that he doesn't think the faster = better correlation continued for long after that particular 7" album).

Current Music: Love Cuts the Strings — The Mountain Goats

paperghost

I'm slowly editing older entries. My plans are:

- website stuff will go private, because the links are dead.
- some slightly personal stuff will be access-only. I do want to start making locked entries, but I don't have a circle. I'm considering giving access to anyone who gave me access first, but I'm not active on here enough to make it yet. I plan on ordering stickers with a carrd link that includes DW as a social, but DW still is niche and my attempts at introducing people never stick lol. So a circle / access to locked posts: coming soon, I just don't know when.
-- On that note, I am considering including discussions on more fringe or "fragile" discussions under a lock, but I don't know. Most of my online life was being in manipulative groups or echo chambers ("cult" is a strong word) that punish for wrongthink, so I'm hesitant for making unpopular opinions "centric" to my identity again.
- Half of my mundane posts and to-do lists are also private. I use blogs like twitter, which is the point, but there's so much random bloat in my old posts it's like "ok, whatever".
- I haven't gotten to 2024, but bullshit about my ex will go private too. I just want to leave those 7 years I wasted behind me. One reason I want to make a circle is to have a space to unpack that. I'm not going to police degrees of separation, but I stopped talking to a lot of people because I'm disgusted they still associate with them. Granted, most people don't know how I was treated due to my ex being superficially charming lol. Oh well.

(Not to be shady, but even some public writings I otherwise think are solid have some lies in them... LOL...)

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: worried

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: productive

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: busy

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: enthralled

rmc28

It's been a whole adventure watching Heated Rivalry go mainstream (for once I can claim I was a fan before it was cool!). I turned on Radio 2 in a hire car on Tuesday evening and the presenter was talking about it. Half the UK ice hockey clubs are making social media posts riffing off the show, or at minimum using music from it in their updates.

But it's also more complicated. Zach Sullivan, one of the very very few out queer professional male hockey players in the world, made an Instagram post a few days ago, about how conflicted he feels about the show. Well worth a read if you have time. Heated Rivalry is a romantic fantasy, the hockey aspects are often wrong, and I agree with Zach that I'm not at all sure the enthusiasm over the show is making things better for closeted male players right now. (I hope it will in the long term, but I worry about the harm right now.)

Also, I am developing a visceral loathing for the phrase "boy aquarium" for hockey rinks.

it's gross
it's not just boys (men) who play ice hockey
please stop sexualising the spaces where people play and get changed

That last point: I play with two mixed (male-dominated) teams, I get changed in the same room as the men, and because my teams are not gross and the changing room is not a sexualised space, I feel safe doing so. If I changed separately, I would miss out on a whole load of the team connection and conversation, all the stuff that creates a team out of a bunch of people who turn up in the same place each week. So I stay and change with my team, and it's not a big deal, and I don't want people to make it a big deal.

boxofdelights

The Three Ws are:
1. What are you currently reading?

I'm in the middle of The Great Transition, Nick Fuller Googins, for solarpunk book club. The transition is to a sustainable way of living. There's a lot of horror in the immediate past, and a lot of life that is just gone forever. The two viewpoint characters are a teenage girl and her father. Her father, who did heroic work during the crisis, when he was a teenager, wants to focus on how much better things are now, and how we are all working together to make them even better. Her mother, who did different kinds of heroic work, says no, we can't relax: the people who caused and profited from the crisis still have too much money and power, and they are working to turn us back to the exploitive and destructive path. We have to stop them.

I'm enjoying it, except that the teenage girl has an (occasionally too-vividly described) eating disorder.

2. What did you recently finish reading?

The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, for Tawanda book group. Much better than I was expecting.
Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, for classics book group. Last read when I was a teenager, when all that sexism and racism was just normal.
Algorithms of Oppression, by Saffiya Noble, for Slow Book Club. This was a hard read, in both subject matter and writing style, so it was good to have the book club to talk it over with, a few chapters at a time.
A Sorceress Comes to Call, by T. Kingfisher, for SF book group. A delight.

3. What do you think you’ll read next?

The Last Hour Between Worlds, by Melissa Caruso, for SF book group. If I can find it.

dine

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tielan

( for later consumption, or now consumption if you prefer )

conuly

Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem
written about something
important
or special
that's gonna happen
or already did.
Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.

Like what?! Lamont asks.
He's all slouched down in his seat.
I don't feel like writing about no occasion.

How about your birthday? Ms. Marcus says.
What about it? Just a birthday. Comes in June and it ain't
June, Lamont says. As a matter of fact,
he says, it's January and it's snowing.
Then his voice gets real low and he says
And when it's January and all cold like this
feels like June's a long, long ways away.

The whole class looks at Ms. Marcus.
Some of the kids are nodding.
Outside the sky looks like it's made out of metal
and the cold, cold air is rattling the windowpanes
and coming underneath them too.

I seen Lamont's coat.
It's gray and the sleeves are too short.
It's down but it looks like a lot of the feathers fell out
a long time ago.
Ms. Marcus got a nice coat.
It's down too but real puffy so
maybe when she's inside it
she can't even tell January from June.

Then write about January, Ms. Marcus says, that's
an occasion.
But she looks a little bit sad when she says it
Like she's sorry she ever brought the whole
occasional poem thing up.

I was gonna write about Mama's funeral
but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth
zapped all the ideas from my head.

I guess them arguing
on a Tuesday in January's an occasion
So I guess this is an occasional poem.

*************

Link

conuly

No real symptoms, but I'm a little stuffy and super sleepy.

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landofnowhere

The Rivals, Richard Sheridan. Readaloud (actually last week, but I forgot to write it up then). Sheridan's plays are good fun and hold up quite well. I enjoyed reading the part of the impractically romantic and melodramatic novel-reading Lydia Languish, as well as the view that the book gives on young ladies' novel-reading habits of the time.

Chroniques du pays des mères, Élisabeth Vonarburg. New French-language reading project! (Haven't had one of those for a while.) This is part of a reading group where we're doing a few chapters a week, so you'll see more posts about this. So far we have interesting post-apocalyptic future worldbuilding, introduced from the point of view of an appealing child character (along with some adult POV to provide more context).

petrea_mitchell

More news about ongoing scams hitting the convention world along with everyone else. Which somehow led to me having to come up with a quick description of ICE for international readers.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: cheerful

althea_valara

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Challenge #11

In your own space, grant someone's wish from Challenge #5. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your own post with the wishes you granted if you feel comfortable doing so.

Okay, I actually granted wishes by commenting on folks' posts, but here's a round-up of the ones I did:

1.

catness wanted recs for games featuring cats, so I recced Stray, Sudocats, and Cats Love Boxes, along with a mention of the kitties of Forspoken.

2.

falena asked for book recs and voice recordings, so I recced Connie Willis and Courtney Milan, and also linked to my Twitch stream where they can watch videos of me chatting.

3.

visualjyushi asked for FFVII icons and writing advice; I commented with both when Challenge 5 first went up.

That's enough for now--I might look through the list again later to see if there's more I can grant.

My own wishlist is here - I've already gotten some great comments but I'll link it again in case folks are feeling generous.

Current Mood: lethargic

redbird

There's more evidence that the shingles vaccine reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease: two more natural experiments (in which people were offered the vaccine based on date of birth or where they lived). One of them comparED the older Zostavax vaccine with the newer Shingrix: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/spotlight-on-the-shingles-vaccineagain

As the blogger, Eric Topol says, "If this vaccine was a drug and reduced Alzheimer’s by 20%, it would be considered a major breakthrough for helping to prevent the disease! But as a vaccine, it hasn't reached any sense of being a blockbuster"

kaberett

Back in November I made a ridiculously overengineered parsnip risotto, as a way of dipping a toe into my next cookbook project. I said at the time that it was very tasty, and also I was unlikely to ever make it again.

( Temporary dietary restrictions. )

conuly

That is not a sentence I want to read at any time in the morning.

(In celsius terms, it's -10 and feels like death.)

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jadelennox

Gandalf was a chickenshit with no self-control who could have prevented the massive death toll at Pelennor Fields. Take the ring, kill the baddie, jump into Mount Doom before it has a chance to corrupt you. But nooooo, it's way more fun to have a grey-Maia/fire-Maia punch-up in a bottomless pit in order to emerge in a gleam of backlighting and inspirational music riding a glowing horsey like a tween girl's puberty dreams, than it is to take the ring, zap in, punch the eyeball Maia in his dumb eyeball, and then jump into the lava.

the_shoshanna

Well, there's flu in my mother's residence and she's recovering from a cold (though says she tested negative for flu and COVID), so the weekend visit with friends is canceled because they can't risk me bringing anything into their space, and the weekdays visit with other friends was already severely cut down because of recent stresses in their lives but now is further reduced to just meeting up for a short walk because they can't risk it either. I do not like this timeline.

(To be clear, I absolutely understand all my friends' reasons and I'm glad they made the calls that are right for them! And we've all planned to see each other when I hope to come down again in April. I'm just sad not to see them 1. at all 2. much now. also I was hoping 1 would want to watch HR with me)

On the other hand, this means I'll be going home before a big storm hits this weekend, which if I'd kept my original schedule might otherwise have ended up delaying me for an extra day, which would then make things tight at home because we're planning to go to Montreal right after I get back. Everything happens for the tolerable in this not yet the shittiest of all possible worlds.

magid

It was a boxed share today, but I got curious about weight, so got out the kitchen scale.

almost 8.5 pounds of carrots
5 pounds of purple-top turnips
4 pounds of watermelon radishes
2 1-lb bags of spinach
a bag of MiTerra corn tortillas (alas, no hechsher)
a jar of roasted chili salsa, by Kitchen Garden (ditto), so I swapped the two of them for 6 more pounds of purple-top turnips (I have a big carrot backlog, and didn’t think I’d get through more radishes or spinach. Plus? My backpack was already full of roots.)

First thoughts: radish-carrot slaw/salad, perhaps with some of the purple daikon I still have. Savory carrot kugel. Some kind of saute with carrots and spinach. Mashed tatties and neeps, possibly with spinach (and sauted mushrooms if I get some mushrooms). Carrots and spinach in ramen. Roasted roots with grain (farro?) bowls, dressed miso-sesame-ginger-garlic mixture.

js_thrill

Today's song is Chinese Rifle Song

Watch on YouTube

Nice song, fine annotation (about how Yam, The King of Crops was a pivotal album release for him), but I don't have a lot to say about them. Listened to the song a couple times and enjoyed it, though.

Current Music: Chinese Rifle Song — The Mountain Goats

princessofgeeks

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minoanmiss

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Current Mood: excited

hindsightseeing

But in an attempt to not fall out of the habit of journalling too early... I am still alive!

I have, admittedly, fallen off the wagon in terms of keeping up with the last few Snowflake challenges. It's quite possible I'll catch up with some at a later date -- I could ramble about my favourite tropes for a decade, but, as in the Top Ten challenge, choice paralysis prevented me from being able to pick one or two and stick with them.

That said... I am currently neck-deep in the final stretch of a longfic, which is consuming approximately 93.5% of my brainpower, and when I'm not working on that I am playing Stardew Valley (Expanded), because basking in 32-bit summer sunshine is a much-needed respite from the current stupid weather. So, that's where I've been for a week.

Anyhow. This is just my silly attempt -- no doubt the first of many -- at an "it's been a while, and I will make myself post something, goddammit, even if it's substanceless" post. Hi!

Current Mood: mellow

hera

My dyslexic ass does not belong in medical school, and I would not be keen to go if I could. But I am belligerently forcing myself to read up on things and study so that I can at least fucking try to understand what is going on with my heath.

There's always the moderate frustration of wanting to be fair to medical providers and the general institution of medicine. Everyone is trying their best! No one is out to get you. When insurance companies are consistently pushing for short appointment times and less testing, it is not on the individual practictioners that issues are not resolved - it falls onto the patient to advocate, and to put in the effort to try new things and seek solutions on their own as well.

But I do get very tired of trying to be fair, when I end up laid out because I took too much Tylenol, and subsequently, my liver and my pancreas are irate at me. But I'm just mildly foaming from pain right now. I've got heat packs, I've got a heavy weight, I've got water and I'm compressed. It is a waiting game to feel better, but that feels very intolerable when I am at the "actually tearful" stage of pain.

Also slightly intolerable right now:

"How are you?

"Not great!"

"I'm sorry to hear that!"

"It's fine, just annoying -"

"It's not fine!! :(((("

I love My People(tm) very, very, very dearly, but if I have that particular conversation one more time, I think I will actually just cry on someone. Ridic!!

oursin

What I read

Finished I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz, though will cop to only skimming the final section 'Fiorucci: the Book' (1980) about which I was a bit WTF? and 'what was she on?'

Over the weekend saw a review somewhere of the latest work by Madeleine Gray speaking well of her first novel Green Dot (2024) so thought I might see what it was like, especially as it was at a very reasonable price on Kobo - gave up about a third or so in. Did not care about the narrator or her situation.

A bit of sortes e-reader (inadvertently opening a book) started a supernatural thriller but I couldn't work out whether it was part of a series and I was supposed to know who these characters and their predicament were, or whether I was supposed to work it out over chapters jumping back and forward over time and didn't feel grabbed. May return because that might be me?

Dick Francis, Risk (1977), where I realised I have recently identified a Francis pattern such that I could finger a certain character very early on as likely to be implicated in bad stuff going down.

On the go

Have been dipping into Timothy d'Arch Smith, The Stammering Librarian (2025), some further collected essays, including one on a person of research interest, and a rather fun Anthony Powell parody.

Dick Francis, The Edge (1988), which is the one involving a lush train journey, with additional Staged Murder Mystery, across Canada (reverse direction to the way I did it).

Up next

Well, the local history society publications in which I was interested have been ordered and have arrived.

wychwood

So far since I arrived here I have watched David Attenborough's new Wild London special, the first two episodes of Wandavision (cor, that's a weird one), and forty-five minutes of The Two Towers. Gimli is really very comic-relief in this one, which I'm not loving. It's more noticeable having recently read the books!

I also woke up at 03:18 yesterday morning and didn't manage more than a few minutes of dozing thereafter, so had a fairly miserable day; beaten, however, by my swimming buddy (who lives around the corner and has been kindly giving me a lift to and from swimming while I'm staying with Mum), whose brother was just diagnosed with CJD, of all things. Apparently there's one or two people diagnosed per million each year, but talk about appalling luck.

Anyway last night I got rather more sleep, so have felt much more at peace with the world today and even accomplished some useful work tasks. I'll need all the available brain for choir tonight, though, this piece seems to be taking a lot of work somehow even though it's Haydn and not exactly difficult.

I have read zero books, but I have made some progress on booklogging, so it's not all bad.

summerstorm

I'm happy to do more top 10s in this post, especially if they have to do with TTRPGs tbh, I forgot I love listing D&D things.

These past few days have been really stressful due to a combination of my sister hogging the washing machine, lack of money, PMS, and yet another delivery that was marked as received when it wasn't, which meant I had to call the store I ordered from yesterday to see if they can do something about that. I would have done it sooner but my brain was not cooperating in the slightest.

Today is -- extremely weird, to be honest, but I did get good news in the form of my mom's request for financial aid being approved and a date for when she'll get the first payment, which is a huge weight off my chest. We just need to survive until March 1, which is... fine? Probably? (Any help is extremely appreciated.)

But holy shit my brain is so confused, y'all. I do not get it. I don't get anything is how confused I am. Who am I. What do I do with my life. I have lists! I have Finch! I have a planner! I have a Trello with multiple possibilities of things to do! I have a page on my planner for stuff I want to watch/read/try! What is wrong with me. (It's my brain recalibrating, I assume. I've had to push down so much anxiety I've had nightmares every fucking day since last Monday. I don't not get it, logically. But feeling it is disconcerting.)

pauraque

This is my second post about As the Earth Dreams, though these are the first stories in the book. I missed the book club meeting when they were discussed, so I'm afraid you'll only be getting my thoughts on them.

I also read the introduction and learned that it offers a one-sentence synopsis for each story, so I guess I can use those when I can't come up with a better one and/or don't understand a story's plot.

"Ravenous, Called Iffy" by Chimedum Ohaegbu

( A masseuse attends her mother's fourth funeral, a prelude to her latest resurrection, only to encounter family she's never met. )

"The Hole in the Middle of the World" by Chinelo Onwualu

( In a dystopian future, a refugee sells her memories. )

"A Fair Assessment" by Terese Mason Pierre

( An antiques appraiser summons spirits to learn more about the objects, and encounters her ancestor. )

pensnest

Well. This post is inspired by the relevant Snowflake Challenge, but does not conform to it.

You see, the 6th Snowflake Challenge this year asks for my Top Ten somethings. And that's really hard to do. Top ten books? Impossible. If I kept lists and records of everything I've read and ranked each book, maybe, but lists and records? Me? Ditto songs. Can't do top ten musicals either. I would need a smaller pool from which to draw!

This is where inspiration struck. My socks! I have many fun pairs of socks, most of which were knitted for me by the wonderful

turlough. There are of course others: the ordinary socks, like the long plum-coloured ones that go with my dark red dress, and the plain black ones for concerts. And there are the slightly more fun socks with 'art' on them, like the yellow 'Klimt' ones or the grey ones with 'The Scream' depicted around the ankle.

But the socks of which I speak are the superior socks from my selection. And even then, I cannot readily pick a Top Ten.

So I decided not to do a Top Ten after all. Instead, I shall show you my favourite baker's dozen pairs of socks, and invite you to select your Top Three. Here are the socks.

To expand, click. Meanwhile,

Top pic, top row, left to right:

1 green, yellow, purple, teal stripes in a zig zag. Cheerful, interestingly textured, and perfectly comfortable

2 Gryffindor socks! very comfortable

3 red with leaf pattern, lovely lace design, a couple of stitches too long in the foot for perfect fit

4 the zig zag socks are more of a magenta pic than shows up in the photo, fabulously pink!

5 woodland stripes in a funky design, comfortable and fun

Bottom row, left to right

6 lovely orange socks with great cable section in the middle, pity it gets hidden in shoes. I am wearing them right now.

7 Cheerful red, blue, purple and green stripes, an older favourite

8 Fraternal socks, bought, not gifted by

turlough, comfy though a teensy bit long, and I like the one with the black toe more than the one with the red toe!

9 Llama socks, bought at Royal Norfolk Show. Knee length, useful under dresses

10 Sheep socks, ditto, but not quite as adorable as llamas!

Double picture:

11 pink and purple striped socks, lovely design, good fit, alas that I have worn through the toe and darned badly.

12 Sloth socks! The sloths are rather bigger than I had bargained for, but they actually don't get in the way as they clutch the fronts of my ankles, and they occasioned great amusement at my recent rehearsal.

Individual picture:

13 purple socks with cable design on the outside of each foot. Love these, very comfortable

So. Which ones would you pick as your Top Three?

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: pleased

troisoiseaux

In War and Peace, I've remembered a big reason why I largely skimmed over the "war" half when I originally read this a decade ago, which is that Nikolai Rostov is so so so so annoying.

In Damon Runyon updates, god, I love linguistic drift:

I wish to say I am very nervous indeed when Big Jule pops into my hotel room one afternoon, because anybody will tell you that Big Jule is the hottest guy in the whole world at the time I am speaking about.

("Hot", in the context of this 1930s gangster story, meaning "wanted by the police", but... LOL.)

cimorene

Apparently I have shingles....

Going to the pharmacy for antivirals and bandages when Wax is done with work.

This raises the interesting possibility that I've had headaches and fever for the last week without really noticing because I'm already miserable, huddling in blankets with no energy as my default state in January.

paperghost

Taking notes...

( sleep aide nonsense )

There's a snow warning in Dallas this weekend, I really hope a freeze doesn't happen. Any excitement for my days off on Friday and Saturday is dead.

rmc28

Today would have been my mother's 79th birthday. It's been 3.5 years, I still miss her.

Her sister, my aunt, is in hospital following a stroke last week, and not expected to recover. My cousins are on their way to Australia (possibly there by now) and hoping to arrive in time to say goodbye.

I walked to work this morning in a downpour with angsty-sad music in my headphones, and let myself cry it out while no-one was watching. In the last few minutes of my walk, the sun briefly shone through the clouds, and the music algorithm played me something more upbeat. I took in the moment of beauty, and walked on.

Profile

Agony Aunt

January 2026

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Page Summary

rmc28 - New possessions
conuly - I was reading a story in which a young character gets a new pair of glasses
dine - so many politicians have me repeatedly asking, 'what is your damage?'
lucymonster - The Lord of the Rings
vass - Things
adafrog - Snowpocalypse.
magid - ::ponder::
kaberett - some good things make a post
ysobel - Prednisone song, updated
rmc28 - ahaha
wychwood - december booklog
raven - fic: paper lanterns, one after another [Heated Rivalry]
oursin - Certain things accomplished (with some niggles)
js_thrill - This Year 365 songs: January 22nd
paperghost - (no subject)
minoanmiss - Disturbing News
minoanmiss - A thing I did
princessofgeeks - also
princessofgeeks - ARGH Heated Rivalry rec
rmc28 - It's always more complicated
boxofdelights - reading Wednesday
dine - you're crazy and I'm out of my mind
tielan - links blinks
conuly - Occasional Poem by Jacqueline Woodson
conuly - I wonder if, despite my best efforts, I've managed to come down with a mild cold
landofnowhere - wednesday books, in which women guide the plot
petrea_mitchell - SMOF News, volume 5, issue 22
princessofgeeks - Heated Rivalry rec
althea_valara - Snowflake Challenge 2026 - Challenge 11: Grant a Wish
redbird - good news: health
kaberett - [food] parsnip risotto, redux
conuly - Brr! "14F, feels like 7"
jadelennox - In this essay I will
the_shoshanna - sigh
magid - Winter share, 7 of 11
js_thrill - This Year 365 songs: January 21st
princessofgeeks - The Night Manager S2
minoanmiss - Actual good news!
hindsightseeing - I realise it's only been a week.
hera - (no subject)
oursin - Wednesday attended the Fellows' monthly symposia
wychwood - life ticking along
summerstorm - (no subject)
pauraque - As the Earth Dreams, ed. Terese Mason Pierre (2025) [part 2]
pensnest - Snowflake Challenge #6, sort of
minoanmiss - Edible Art
troisoiseaux - An unserious Reading Wednesday post
cimorene - Oh okay
paperghost - mundane
rmc28 - Weather, emotional and actual

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