liv | Reading

What I read

Made a rather slow progression through Li, Wondrous Transformations, and finished it, a little underwhelmed somehow. Some useful information, but a fair amount of familiar territory.

As a break, re-read of KJ Charles' Will Darling Adventures, Slippery Creatures (2020), Subtle Blood (2020) and The Sugared Game (2021), as well as the two short pendant pieces, To Trust Man on His Oath (2021) and How Goes the World (2021).

Then - I seem to be hitting a phase of 're-reading series end to end'? - Martha Wells, All Systems Red (2017), Artificial Conditions (2018), Rogue Protocol (2018) and Exit Strategy 2018), and the short piece Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (2020).

Late

Before you say
You are too old to change,
Listen:
Some of these new hairs
Are already
Silver
It is never too late
To climb out
Of your grave.

oursin

So today was my physio let's see how you're doing assessment, at the different health centre -

- which I was in a bit of a swivet about getting to, because the obvious straightforward route is the longest, and there are shorter ones but these involve a tangle of residential streets -

- not to mention, whichever way you slice it, the road winds uphill all the way, yea, to the very end, because the health centre is bang opposite Parliament Hill.

Nonetheless, I found a route which seemed doable, which said 24 mins (and that was not actually starting from home base but from the road by the railway line), which I thought was possibly optimistic for an Old Duck such as myself, but mirabile dictu it was in fact just over 20 but under 25 minutes, win, eh?

And took me along streets I have seldom walked along since the 70s/80s when I was visiting them more frequently for Reasons.

Had a rather short but I hope useful meeting with the physio - some changes to existing exercises and a new one or two.

Thought I would get a bus back as I had had time to check out the nearby bus stops, and there was one coming along which according to the information at the stop was going in a useful direction.

Alas it was coming from the desired direction, but still, cut off a certain amount of homewards slog.

lnr

A letter to Pippa Heylings, Lib Dem MP for South Cambs, about the Supreme Court trans ruling

Attn: Pippa Heylings MP
South Cambridgeshire

Tuesday 22 April 2025

Eleanor Blair
[Address redacted]
CB22 5AE

eleanorb@gmail.com

Dear Pippa Heylings,

I'm afraid I think this message may be a little incoherent at times, but I needed to write now, while it is still fresh.

I am enormously concerned by the recent Supreme Court ruling on the use of the word "woman" in the Equality Act, and rather more so at the disproportionate response to this ruling by various organisations. In particular today both the BBC and the Independent are reporting that the minister for equalities Bridget Phillipson has said that trans people should use the toilets matching their biological sex, rather than their gender identity, and the alarming news last week that the British Transport Police now state that trans women (males) should be search by male police officers in future.

Someone asked me earlier today if I would be happy with males using women's changing rooms, and this was my response:

---

Yes. As a cis woman, a "biological woman" if you insist, I am absolutely happy to share changing rooms with trans women or with young children who are not independent enough to change on their own in the men's changing room.

And I also think *all* changing rooms should have at least some locking cubicles for privacy regardless of this opinion because not everyone can face being naked in front of other people even of the same sex. For all sorts of reasons from embarrassment to periods to colostomy bags to religion to previous trauma.

Stop thinking this is a gotcha, it isn't.

I'm *not* happy that British Transport Police have immediately officially changed their policy to state that trans women must be searched by male police officers. Or that the government are now saying the NHS must reconsider same sex spaces too.

It was *always* possible to exclude trans women from women-only spaces *if there was a legitimate and proportional reason to do so*. It seems that this judgment has shifted the bar considerably as to what is being considered proportional and that worries me, not just for "biological" women who will inevitably be caught in the cross fire (don't tell me it won't happen, it already does) but also for trans women and trans men and non-binary people who just want to get on with their lives in peace and not have to campaign for third spaces which don't currently exist in order to do so.

---

I don't know what you can do here, but I would like to see you speak out against this over-reaction to the Supreme Court ruling.

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor Blair

oursin

Happy birthday,

mme_hardy and

polyamorous!

hunningham

I'm jangling frantic with all the things I should be doing and have not done (paid work & clients needing attention, upcoming elections & activism, looking after father-in-law, exercise). I've just had a four day weekend where I feel that I have not managed to do one single thing that I should have done, and I'm being pulled in many different directions with this, this, this.

Also I've just realised that I have entirely forgotten to write & send out the minutes for the last committee meeting and it should have been done a week ago. Gah.

I have been reading Fire Weather : A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant and Doppelganger by Naomi Klein and both books, in their separate ways, talk about climate change, & offer scant optimism for the future.

And I just shutdown and start playing endless mindless puzzle games on my ipad.

china_shop

Previous poll review
In the vegetables poll, 90.4% of respondents clicked fresh vegetables (bought), 46.2% clicked frozen vegetables, and 44.2% clicked fresh vegetables (homegrown). I was surprised; I thought more people would go frozen for the convenience. (I wonder what that says, if anything, about Dreamwidth demographics.)

In ticky-boxes, hugs came first with 78.8%, followed by a tie between "hanging in there until things settle down and I can sort my life out" and "sunbeams playing in a tree, daring each other to peek around the shadowed side" with 63.5% each. Thank you for your votes!

Reading
Still going on The Horse and His Boy (I am slow and distractable) and the Guardian novel read-along (it's on a schedule). Nothing in audio.

Kdramas
We started Tale of the Nine Tailed, a sweeping epic about a powerful immortal, the reincarnated love of his life, and his bratty younger brother. (Nothing at all like Guardian the novel, why do you ask?) I'm hoping it has enough plot and worldbuilding to hold Andrew's interest; he gets bored during extended romance scenes.

More of Sell Your Haunted House with Pru. And in solo-watching, I started Heesu in Class 2; it's pretty adorable, but also Heesu is the living embodiment of Idiots In Love, and sometimes I have to watch through my fingers.

Other TV
This week's Doctor Who

was very silly and meta, set against a background of ominous racism. Hm. But I did enjoy the jokes, and Belinda is great.

Episode 1 of Sherlock & Daughter. We were just going to try out the first ten minutes to get a sense of it, but we ended up watching the whole episode. I can forgive Holmes for being a grumpy old man when he has a reason for it.

Our Deadloch rewatch-with-a-friend continues, plus Jentry Chau vs the Underworld, about which I still have no opinion.

My sister and I watched Into the Night (1985 film; Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum, and a vast number of film directors as extras, the only one of whom I knew on sight was Jim Henson). The caper was silly, and the romance plotline was very thin, but Goldblum and Pfeiffer are so watchable that it hung together despite the weird pacing when it lingered on random extras we were supposed to recognise. Lovely to see David Bowie in a small (albeit violently psychotic) role.

Guardian/Fandom
I archived my Murderbot flashficlet, and wow, Murderbot fans are generous with their kudosing. *hearts so much* (In my experience, some fandoms are just more kudosy than others.)

Audio entertainment
I listened my way through all of The Setup, a romance audiodrama about Juan, an anxious art museum curator in NYC, and Fernando, the con artist who's trying to steal a painting. It's great! I'm really into it. And then I got to the end of the available episodes and realised it's not finished yet, ahhhhh! I need to check these things before I start!

(Is it just me or are depictions of anxiety becoming more common in romances? I feel like there's some wish fulfilment going on: people longing to meet The One who is hot, super into them, and will also be incredibly kind and patient and give them effective tips for handling their panic attacks. Not that romances aren't all about wish fulfilment, so why not? Add dimensions to your dream partner!)

Writing/making things
My little 4k exchange fic is becoming somewhat tortured by all the writing advice I'm trying to enact on it. Hopefully I'm not engineering the spark out of the thing. Also, hopefully I emerge from this process wiser and more capable. (It could happen!) Note to self: this story still doesn't have an ending, oops.

Other than that, I'm spending a lot of my life rolling around in meta discussions, yay!

Life/health/mental state things
Oh, look, let's not even talk about it. /o\

Note to self: I had a flu jab on Saturday.

Online life
I'm switching ISPs on Friday. Wish me luck! If I disappear off the face of the internet, that will be why.

Food
Today marks my first attempt at baked potatoes in the slow cooker. *fingers crossed* I forgot to prickle them with a fork before I wrapped them in foil, so who knows.

Good things
Fandom. Writing. Lunchtime dumplings on the back deck. Cephalopod plushies. Queer audiodramas. Friends coming over to watch stuff. Guardian. Home-made salsa. Trivia quizzes. Music and kindness and laughter and love.

Poll #33020 face blindness extrapolation

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43

View Respondents

Do you have face-blindness?

View Answers

yes
2 (4.7%)

technically no, but it's not unusual for me to get people confused
23 (53.5%)

especially when they're dressed the same
14 (32.6%)

no
12 (27.9%)

I mix up similar usernames
14 (32.6%)

honestly, they don't have to be that similar
12 (27.9%)

other
1 (2.3%)

ticky-box full of black cats slinking mysteriously in the shadows
28 (65.1%)

ticky-box full of starting a howl
15 (34.9%)

ticky-box of overthinking
21 (48.8%)

ticky-box full of squirrel-dragons with floofy tails, guarding their golden acorns
21 (48.8%)

ticky-box full of hugs
33 (76.7%)

china_shop

( One link behind the cut )

sonia

Crisis Planning: The Hit-By-A-Bus Plan by

lb_lee.

The hit-by-a-bus plan is for when you are suddenly unable to perform your usual duties or communicate the need to get them done to others—such as when you are suddenly committed to a mental hospital, kidnapped, or hit by a bus and put in a coma. The plan is especially for people without spouse or families. Getting hit by a bus may be unavoidable, but less so is getting fired (or a pet dying) because you aren’t there and nobody knows what happened or what to do. It has two components: prep work for yourself (for psychological crisis), and stuff for helpers to do on your behalf afterward (general purpose).

This is a great post. I find it overwhelming to try to set all of this up at once. I might take small steps, like giving my immediate neighbors an emergency contact's phone number.

For those of us who have pets, having a pet sitter who already knows the situation and can get in if needed is useful in an unexpected absence.

Declaration of Interdependence by

queerspacepunk (aka

emmett) via

jesse_the_k. I love this vision of easy interconnectedness, although a followup post brings up the need for clear communication and respect for boundaries as well.

I recently went through, "Where the heck is my neighbor and how do I make sure his cat gets fed." (All ended well, thank goodness.) While it might feel vulnerable to share information and ask for help, it's a kindness rather than an imposition to the surrounding community in case of unexpected emergencies.

jjhunter

Let's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===

even single cells
know the daytime sync and sleep
for wake tomorrow

_

cosmolinguist

The one thing about discord that I wish I could get on Signal is different names for different group chats. I'm the only Firstname Lastname LinkedIn-sona in this new trans group I've joined; everyone else has a single lowercase noun for a name, like a normal person.

I hosted a hybrid meeting today, and when D asked who was coming, the names I gave him were one animal, two vegetable, and one mineral.

wychwood

Bad news all round the last few days - TERFs winning a court case to allow anyone who wants to deny GRCs last week, and then Pope Francis dying this morning. Of course he'd been in terrible health for much of the year, but I'm still sad about it.

I didn't agree with everything he said (of course!) but the work he did on refocussing the Church and particularly the media voices away from spending all their time on ABORTION and HOMOSEXUALITY towards, you know, poverty and injustice and all the things that Jesus spent most of his time talking about was just amazing. Now we're left worrying about who will take over, and what agenda they might have; he's appointed a good share of the current voting-age cardinals, which hopefully means that whoever it is won't immediately undo everything. RIP Pope Francis, and thank you.

Today was my big DAY OFF and I have, on the one hand, done two weeks' worth of ironing, three loads of laundry, a week's worth of washing up, and a fair amount of assorted tidying up; on the other hand, I read a JD Robb book, played an hour or two of Dragon Age: Veilguard, had a nap, and spent enough time in idleness that I feel reasonably well-rested. My dad said to me yesterday when I was leaving to come home, "You're really tired today, aren't you?" and I thought about whether I was tired and spontaneously started leaking tears (always a sure indication!!). I feel much more emotionally stable today, fortunately.

Unfortunately I am now going back to their house for the next two days as part of a rota to make sure that Mum has someone around for a) dinner prep and b) potential crises while Dad's in France making sure the house hasn't fallen down since he had to rush back in January. It should be relatively peaceful - there'll be some assorted chores around stripping, laundering, and remaking beds, maybe a bit of restoring order after the departure of the houseful of guests, but I'm taking several books, a few DVDs, and my booklog file to hopefully make some progress on. But no video games, alas. I'll leave there to go to choir, then back home for work on Thursday followed by book group followed by back into the office on Friday, because the fun just never stops!! but honestly the next few weeks are moderately reasonable.

rachelmanija

In this YA novel published in 1990, six fourteen-year-olds face their inner dragons while they're in an accelerated academic program which includes a class on Beowulf.

I read this when it first came out, so when I saw a copy at a library book sale, I grabbed it to re-read. It largely holds up, though I'd completely forgotten the main plot and only recalled the theme and the subplot.

My recollection of the book was that the six teenagers are inspired by class discussions on Beowulf to face their personal fears. This is correct. I also recalled that one of the girls was a gymnast with an eating disorder and one of the boys was an athlete partially paralyzed in an accident, and those two bonded over their love of sports and current conflicted/damaging relationship to sports and their bodies, and ended up dating. This is also correct.

What I'd completely forgotten was the main plot, which was about the narrator, Eric, who idolized his best friend, Paul, and had an idealized crush on one of the girls in the class, who he was correctly convinced had a crush on Paul, and incorrectly convinced Paul was mutually attracted to. Paul, who is charming and outgoing, convinces Eric, who is shy, to do a speech class with him, where Eric surprisingly excels. The main plot is about the Eric/Paul relationship, how Eric's jealousy nearly wrecks it, and how the boys both end up facing their dragons and fixing their friendship.

Paul's dragon is that he's secretly gay. The speech teacher takes a dislike to him, promotes Eric to the debate team when Paul deserves it more (and tells Eric this in private), and finally tries to destroy Paul in front of the whole class by accusing him of being gay! Eric defends Paul, Paul confesses his secret to him, and the boys repair their friendship.

While a bit dated/historical, especially in terms of both boys knowing literally nothing about what being gay actually means in terms of living your life, it's a very nicely done novel with lots of good character sketches. The teachers are all real characters, as are the six kids - all of whom have their own journeys. The crush object, for instance, is a pretty rich girl who's been crammed into a narrow box of traditional femininity, and her journey is to destroy the idealized image that Eric is in love with and her parents have imposed on her - and part of Eric's journey is to accept the role of being her supportive friend who helps her do it.

I was surprised and pleased to discover that this and other Sweeney books are currently available as ebooks. I will check some out.

nanila

Who was your first crush?

Real person: It was a boy named Colin, in the fifth grade. I would have been ten years old. I can't remember anything about him except he had blue eyes and I could make him laugh until he cried.

Fictional TV character: Jean-Luc Picard.

Fictional literary character: Sherlock Holmes.
Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

I have extrovert energy, but I'm an introvert and I very much need my alone time.
What is your favorite non-sexual thing you like to do with the love of your life?

I can't think of a particular favourite. I just enjoy his company.
What is one quirky habit your partner does that either annoys you or makes you grin?

This does both: throwing his pants at the laundry basket and missing. Like, every single day.
Do you believe in monogamous relationships?

It works for me. I do understand they're not for everyone.

maju

My daughter made it home yesterday in just a tad over 5 hours. She didn't say, but she must have driven non-stop. She did say there was very little traffic. Google maps, which is always very optimistic, says the trip takes 5 hours and 9 minutes if there are no delays. (My experience has always been that any trip takes an hour or two longer than Google maps predicts.)

I don't think I had one good night's sleep while they were here, but I mostly felt ok. On their final morning (yesterday) I woke up at 3 am and couldn't get back to sleep but I was feeling reasonably energetic in spite of lack of sleep. This morning, however, although I slept very well I woke up with a bad headache, but it went away after some Tylenol and breakfast, and I feel all right now. I'm expecting to sleep fairly well for the next few nights with any luck.

After my run yesterday I ended up with an incipient blister on the tip of my right big toe. I don't think I've ever had a blister in that particular spot before, and I think it was because I ran further than I have for a long time. I should have increased my distances more gradually I guess. Anyway, this morning I went for a shorter brisk walk instead of trying to run again, and the blister seems not to have developed.

My front yard has been looking quite overgrown and unkempt for a couple of weeks since the weather got warmer, so this morning after my walk I attacked it with my push mower. I didn't do a very thorough job but it looks better than it did, which is all I was really aiming for. While I was out there working I found an undiscovered egg from the girls' egg hunt on Saturday. All the eggs were plastic eggs with jelly beans and sour lollies inside, so I scored three jelly beans and one sour lolly. It would have been better if there was chocolate inside but I enjoyed the unexpected treat anyway.

oursin

But this did sound awfully like that spate of books where people had A Bright Idea to Do Something for A Year and got a book out of it, which was clearly the intention, and this struck my cynical ayfeist self as 'My Spiritual Pilgrimage to a Mystical Experience, Conversion, Faith, and Publishing Deal'.

Could I become a Christian in a year?

(How long did it take St Augustine? asking for a friend.)

For my perpetual Christian road-trip – beginning in the last months of 2022 and ending in early 2024 – I purchased a 21 year-old Toyota Corolla and stocked the glove box with second-hand CDs. I filled up my calendar with Christian retreats, church visits and stays in the houses of Christian strangers all across the highways and byways of the UK – Cornwall, Sussex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Birmingham, north Wales, Norfolk, Sheffield, Halifax, Durham, the Inner Hebrides – seeking out every kind of Christian, from Catholics to Orthodox Christians: Quakers, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, high to low Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, self-professed mystics, focusing on my generation specifically, those in their 20s and 30s, the youngest set of adults in Britain.

70s flashback!!! Only in those days it was people working their way through the various offerings of the 'Growth' aka 'Human Potential' Movement that was flourishing then and I'm pretty sure that people wrote up their memoirs of their odysseys through the various practices/groups/cults on offer.

I was also, in the light of this article today, intrigued that it was two bloke friends who set her on this path: I’m delighted to see gen Z men in the UK flocking back to church – I just hope it’s for the right reasons. So am I. I have a friend who has been involved in the much-delayed and still unsatisfactory response of the C of E to certain abuse cases and some of those seem to have been connected with cultish manifestations which were praised for bringing in that particular demographic.

(And having noted the other day that Witchfinder Hopkins was pretty much in that demographic of young men aged 18-24, I'd really like to know where these Gen Z converts are in relation to issues like ordination of women, LGCBTQ+ inclusivity, etc etc.)

andrewducker

In the future all zoo trips will look like this.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

cesy

I’ve just done basic CPR training in 15 minutes with British Heart Foundation’s free digital tool RevivR. All you need is a smartphone or tablet and a cushion. It's boosted my confidence in first aid, and reminded me of stuff I learned on previous first aid courses.

https://revivr.bhf.org.uk/?shar=1

siderea

There's been a lot of really great public addresses of various kinds on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. I thought I'd share a few.

1.

Here's one that is quite worth your time. Historian Heather Cox Richardson gave a talk on the 18th of April in the Old North Church – the very building where the two lanterns of legend were hung. It's an absolutely fantastic account of the events leading up to April 19, 1775 – a marvel of concision, coherence, and clarity – that I think helps really see them anew.

You can read it at her blog if you prefer, but I strongly recommend listening to her tell you this story in her voice, standing on the site.

2025 April 18: Heather Cox Richardson [YT]: Heather Cox Richardson Speech - 250 Year Lantern Anniversary - Old North Church (28 minutes):

Watch on YouTube

( More within )

zimena

Me, on this DW a few days ago:

Players I want OUT, as soon as possible:
Neil Robertson, Luca Brecel, Ali Carter.
From the tactical point of view, I also want Kyren Wilson and John Higgins out,
but it's not a fierce desire for it to happen as soon as possible.

The first two days of the World Championship gave these results among others:

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Kyren Wilson 9 - 10 Lei Peifan 🇨🇳
🇦🇺 Neil Robertson 8 - 10 Chris Wakelin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Do I get to make another, more important wish, too? I mean, seeing as these ones worked surprisingly well?

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Mark Selby to lift his 5th World Championship trophy on May 5th. Please.

oursin

Happy birthday,

lexin!

china_shop

The Writing Excuses podcast is doing a series on voice (first, third limited, third omniscient), and mostly their discussions have been great. I've enjoyed them a lot. But I found today's episode on second person (2ndPOV) unsatisfying. They got distracted talking about video games, TTRPG, online recipe essays, and Youtube influencers, and when they did discuss fictional prose, they seemed to think the "you" character had to be a reader stand-in. (Or maybe I misunderstood? Quite possible!) Anyway, now I'm itching to ~~procrastinate on my story~~ talk with like-minded souls about the joys of second person.

Note: If you not into 2ndPOV, that's totally cool. Each to their own! But please don't chime in to tell me or explain why; I'm not interested in defending it today.

( Rambling, so much rambling. )

ION, Andrew sent me a link to Secrets of Writing Snappy Dialogue (Banter) (Youtube video). At first I was resistant, but then I watched it and now I'm overhauling my 4k fic AGAIN. This is killing me, lol.

sorcyress

Finished Reading Recently:

This entry is not counting children's books, since I talked about those separately.

It took me longer than expected to read Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett, but that happens sometimes, and it spanned the Brain Be Weird part of the month where I was badly crashed out. I quite liked it, obviously. Here's what I wrote on Weds when I finished it:

Okay yeah, Feet of Clay was *really* good. I like the gender part --"we've got extra pronouns here", _be still my heart_ and I really fucking like the golems. And I lovehate Vetrinari so very much, he is such a beautifully sympathetic antagonist. If Vimes ever figures out how much he's been played...actually, I think Vimes would sulk for a bit and then be okay with it.

And then there's Dorfl, and Oh Man. The part of my ~~brain~~heart that loves community and solidarity and the inherent worth of all and trying to make things better for everyone is Very Aware Of How Good This Feels.

I'm obviously going to keep reading, but one of the unexpected things I really like is that I've read three watch books now and each of them is a fully complete story. No cliffhangers! Like, there's obviously more things that _could_ happen, but they feel like opportunities, not like frustrations. It's an astonishing feature of writing, and something I hadn't realized I'd been missing by some of the other fantasy I've read. I love Seanan, for instance, but you read enough Toby books and you know there's unfinished story that hasn't been resolved and it'll nag at you. Which is fine! The story she is telling is a longer one that takes a lot of books to get through! But it's still refreshing to know that I could never read another Discworld book and still feel like I've reached a satisfying end.

After, I dove into Richard Osman's We Solve Murders on a day in which I was going on slow meandery errands that involved lots of hanging out outside in the _almost_ bearable weather. Read from start to finish in about three and a half hours, nearly continuous, and you know? It was real nice to have a book that was both fluffy enough and captivating enough to do so. Osman writes incredibly human characters, with fairly clear good-vs-evil descriptors, and it's pretty fun to find out what they're up to.

On Thursday I read a couple of short works, the first of which was an 1884 Evangelical screed entitled There is no harm in dancing (a title, I want to be clear, that should be read extremely sarcastically). It's about thirty pages explaining how dancing is The Worst Sin That Ever Was and especially being simultaneously victim-blaming and slut-shaming about All Those Horrible Women That Do It And Corrupt Men, and then we get to the crown-jewel part, which says something like "most if not all of these sins can be found at every dance" and precedes to list about thirty sins, a great many of which I have never once seen because I am clearly not going to exciting enough dances. For instance, not once have I been on a dance floor that features "assassination", or "infanticide" although I have to admit, of late "sedition" has been appearing in most of my social experiences. Anyways, it turns out that if you're gonna hate-read something, choose something that's like a century and a half old, it's *way* funnier. And I wish I knew how to cross-stitch so I could make a proper art piece out of that last bit.

I followed it up with the Simple Sabotage Manual, which is neat because a lot of the specifics they offer are out of date, but the concepts feel real clear and lovely. I shouldn't say more about this one.

Thursday afternoon I stumbled into a copy of Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, which I haven't read in ages, so I grabbed it. It's still a pretty fun book! It is more of a love story than I remember, I think I think of it as "Ella becoming a whole adult" but it really is "falling in love with Char" as the central premise. It's sweet though, it's a damn good romance, and I like all the worldbuilding quite a bit.

Currently Reading:

I have cracked spine on Wyrd Sisters (metaphorically, all my Pratchett is in e-form) but literally only read about three pages. So I'll get to that all in a rush soon.

I don't know if I have properly mentioned, in part because I really don't know how to mark it on my spreadsheet: I have gotten pretty entangled in The SCP Foundation of late, which is several million words of collaborative semi-horror. It just _keeps going_ is what I am finding. It's serving as a nice thing to read when I don't feel like playing video games.

Reading Next

SamSam has never heard of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, and I'm visiting them soon, so that's going to get read aloud I suspect, at least a few chapters worth.

I have the next Vorkosigan book, so I really ought to do that. Also I downloaded like...fifty? eighty! Eighty things from Project Gutenburg. This is how I got the short stuff I mentioned above, but there's Oz and the coloured faerie books, and the complete Poe, and Man of La Mancha, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and all sorts of stuff.

And Dracula Daily starts in two weeks. Every year I've managed to get a little farther, but this'll be my third year trying it out. Let's see if I can finish the novel this time around!

~Sor
MOOP!

sonia

The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea by Naomi Kritzer. A satisfying story about a geeky family staying in a tiny town on the Massachusetts coast. Sometimes things turn out okay in the end, although it can take a long, difficult time to get there.

We Begin Where Infinity Ends by Somto Thezue. Three scientifically inclined teens, their friendship, and their tinkering to save the fireflies.

Both of these stories are also about love and belonging.

used_songs

Busy day at my parents' house today. I tried a new recipe on them and it was a hit.I also made them ham, sauteed asparagus and corn. I always try to give them lots of veggies.

I did a lot of little jobs (changing light bulbs, cleaning, packing up things they want to donate, etc.) and then I also cut down 4 biggish trash trees, chopped them up, and put them in the green waste bin.

watersword

Yesterday was the first really nice day we've had since, like, October, and it was also the spring workday for garden #4. My bed there is now nicely topped up with compost and I will put asparagus and rhubarb in when I get back from the Obligatory Family Event next week. (I also got a bunch of numbers from fellow gardeners and am going to try to organize an expedition to a local native nursery.)

Today was a little chillier and windy, but I got out and planted four kinds of peas (Snak Hero, Cascadia, Mammoth Melting, and a sweet pea mix) and pruned the rosemary in my plot in garden #1. Providence is so beautiful in the spring, and everything has started blooming practically overnight, trees foaming with white and pink and gold, daffodils and tulips and violets glowing.

Tomorrow is the election for the board for the group backing garden #3, I am not running and no one can make me.

ETA: Goddamn it, I am informed no one has volunteered to lead the infrastructure committee, which is what I care about anyway. But I only care about a subset of things in infrastructure (benches and the pollinator garden) and what I have said before still applies: I don't want to be in charge of shit! I am very good at it but it is very bad for me! This is not how I want to spend my one wild and precious life!

kaberett

Reading. I continue to make slow progress with both What An Owl Knows (Jennifer Ackerman) and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke).

Writing. Grumpy e-mails to Labour, mostly? Grumpy e-mails to Labour. Oh, and separately to the DWP courtesy of My UC Journal.

Playing. I have tripped and fallen back into 2048. I do not know why I have tripped and fallen thus. There are other things I would rather be doing. Brain whyyy.

I Love Hue current status: just started The Alchemy/Knowledge/12.

Cooking. Two new-to-us recipes from East: caramelised fennel and carrot salad with mung beans and herbs, of which I am a fan but about which A is a bit meh; and Amritsari pomegranate chickpeas, with the decaf English Breakfast I bought the other week, which I also quite liked but A was mildly dubious of.

Today has featured a different Welsh cake recipe, from one of the charity-shop books I acquired for the purposes of the special interest in EYB indexing. This one includes honey and ground mixed spice; I am decidedly disconcerted by how much they taste like Wrong Texture Mince Pies when cool.

Eating. ... yeah it's been A Migrainey Week, and has consequently contained two rounds of Wagamama. TRAGICALLY I decided on the first of these to branch out and try Not My Usual. Not My Usual turned out to contain The Dread Mayonnaise (I had been lulled into a false sense of security by the number of things called "slaw" I had recently encountered that did not contain mayo). It was mostly salvageable...

Exploring. ADVENTURES in VAN HIRE for the purposes of moving SHED. This involved heading out to Hatfield, because the one fifteen minutes up the road was already Thoroughly Booked. We got to observe MORE FLOWERS and lo they were good.

... I think that's it? I think that's it. (A also went on another adventure to acquire roof box and appropriate rack, but I stayed at home for that one.)

Making & mending. I have not, technically, actually resumed A's pair of gloves, BUT I have now got the information from A I need in order to do so! So that's a progress.

... there has also been. Event prep. So much event prep. The meal ticket booklets for crew are all done; the potions are all sliced and folded ready for laminating (except for the one that needed someone to actually finish writing what it did); ... progress?

Growing. SO MANY SQUASH. Not all of the ones I sowed, but... a lot... have come up.

Somewhat irritated that somebody found my Bravest Dwarf Pea, which had actually managed to find and attach itself to the pea sticks, and severed the stem a little below said attachment. :|

Main infrastructural progress this week was getting all the railway sleepers and shed bits up to the plot (with significant and indispensable help from A). I've not done anything with them yet but they are there, I have plans, necessary hardware is en route, etc.

What else what else? First of the beans are in the ground. I was feeling decidedly surly about my redcurrant but this turns out to have been premature and unfair -- since last weekend it's unfurled a little more and is looking much more promising in terms of potential harvest. The raspberries also seem to be very much enjoying the mulch + semi-regular watering, which is pleasing.

Observing. I totally forgot to mention in last week's section on this topic that on the ride back from Anglesey Abbey we observed Many Cowslips, including at least one that was red!

Tulips continue fantastic. Irises are getting into the swing of things at this point. The bindweed is definitely waking up...

jjhunter

Let's take a breath for poetry. It is April, and as good a time as any for a collaborative poetry fest. Please find below a starting stanza or two of a brand new haikai (what's a haikai, you ask? Think extended haiku: alternating stanzas of 5-7-5 and 7-7). Comment with a following stanza to build on that seed. Someone (most likely me) will respond with another stanza, and so on and so forth throughout the day.
===

every wooded path
The Lost Forest, every hole
home to mystery

_

jesse_the_k

Declaration of Interdependence from queerspacepunk (aka emmett)

A tiny snippet from a lovely thread

i want to be asked to come over and help put my friend's kids to bed as casually as they might text their spouse and ask them to pick up milk on the way home

i want to stop and pick up milk for another friend because i know their spouse hates the grocery store

i want to buy fruit that i dont like because it's on special and i know people who do

i want to pass lemons over the fence and to take my neighbours bins out when the forget

i want group chats instead of rideshare apps, calls in the middle of the night because someone's at the hospital, lonely or hungry or both

i want to do the dishes in other people's houses, extra servings wrapped in tinfoil and tea towels so it's still warm when you drop it off, a basket of other people's mending by my couch

i want to be surrounded by reminders that 'imposing' on each other is what we were born to do

https://queerspacepunk.tumblr.com/search/interdependence

Today I learned there are graphic resources—icons and banners—on the Archive of Our Own!

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Banners%20*a*%20Icons/works

(Sadly AO3’s metatags don’t create RSS feeds, so I can’t add one here.)

New DW community for people who archive information from the web: datahoarders

timeasmymeasure provides resources for would-be archivists without tech skills: https://datahoarders.dreamwidth.org/3299.html

Of particular interest to me:

AO3 Downloader: a life-saver for any person who has thought, "God, I wish I could download all of my bookmarks, but that would take sooo long to do individually." Another Github download which is saved by its thorough instructions!

forestofglory

I’m once again sharing my thoughts on my recent media consumption. But first some thoughts about my joyful reading project.

I spent several days making a deliberate effort to not read if I didn’t feel like reading or wasn’t excited by anything I had to read. I don’t think it really helped? I was kind of miserable but in a different way than when I read things because I don’t have anything better to do. (I need no screen low hand impact things to do right before bed) But I guess after I did that I did end up reading some things. So maybe it worked? But I would rather not do it again.

I went back to reading not because I was suddenly super excited but because I had a day where I was too sick to do much at all and ended up reading a long fic all day.Which was nice, maybe not joyful, but nice.

( All Systems Red, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire, The Crescent Moon Tearoom, and The Flash Band )

oursin

No bread made this week, last week's + rolls holding out.

Firday night supper: sardegnera with spicy Calabrian salami; okay but not the great sardegnera I've accomplished.

Saturday breakfast rolls: the ones loosely based on James Beard's mother's raisin bread, made with Marriage's Light Spelt Flour.

Today's lunch: lemon sole fillets, which I baked thus - first cooked chopped shallots, chopped up butter and pancetta in hot oven for 15 mins, then added quartered little gem lettuce for a further 5 mins, then added petit pois (tinned, recipe said frozen but they only had huge bags of frozen) and white wine + water (recipe said vegetable stock but didn't have any) and placed sole fillets on top and seasoned with salt and pepper, baked for a further 5-10 mins, added lemon zest just before serving (this was about finding something to do with spare packet of pancetta left over from the other week); served with warm green bean and fennel salad (dressing actually olive oil + white wine + tarragon, left for a bit to marinate and strained over the beans) (this was using up the fennel left over from last week, also last red onion); and sticky rice with coconut milk and lime leaves.

Liv's pals

Late

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