thefourthvine | Reading

Someone may be selling exactly the backpack I want (they're checking if it's a women's style, and whether it's regular or long torso but frankly I'm on the edge of them, I can take either), at a very reasonable price!

But they're in Vancouver, and saying local pickup only. (Also this is on Facebook Marketplace, and I hate Facebook but oh well.)

rydra_wong

Via https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3mkboea2zgs2k

Clinician Guide: Constellation of Chronic Medical Conditions Commonly Seen in Autistic & ADHD Adults

https://allbrainsbelong.org/all-the-things/

In May 2022, we formed a Task Force of clinicians, patients, and community members to discuss what works (and does not work) to manage these medical conditions or symptoms. We also gathered information from more than 100 autistic adults. These individuals gave feedback based on their personal experiences. The content we share on this website combines evidence-based medicine, lived experience, and our clinical experiences treating patients with these conditions.

heresluck

I am now in the stage of watching my own vid draft export over and over like I can make the necessary changes through sheer force of will. (I have been testing this theory off and on for more than two decades. It does not work.)

Speaking of which, I realized yesterday that sometime this month is the 24th anniversary of finishing my first vid. This is not the sort of thing I generally keep track of, so it was a startling realization. My current students, even the oldest of them, were very much not born yet when I started vidding. Time: just keeps happening!

Anyhow -- I made

sdwolfpup give me a virtual high-five for finishing the draft even though she does not care about Heated Rivalry AT ALL (the truest friends love you even when, etc.), and I've gotten suggestions from

sisabet and am waiting for

kouredios to watch on a larger screen this morning, and there is definitely still some work to do (dear showrunners: I know you want to make your shows ~aesthetic~ or whatever, and I appreciate the commitment, I do, but all this color grading makes life difficult for vidders). But I am going to spend as much of the day as possible in the garden, because spring weather waits for no one, and vidding does, especially when the vid in question has already been seen by a third of its expected audience. Heh.

omens

A meme borrowed from

3weeks4dreamwidth (this post) - Put your mp3 player/phone/streaming collection on shuffle, and write down the first line of the first twenty songs. Post the poem that results.

This sounded fun to me and also like it would probably be crap but also make me lol - I'm not a poetry fan but ngl, I think it turned out coherent!! I cheated minimally 😇 I skipped a song I hated and also one that started with like, onomatopoeia :P

poetry (& english translation) inside

Me desperté pensando en to' lo que me hacía'
patrzę jak zegar odmierza mi czas
przebudź się - jesteś wolny, jesteś wolny, jesteś wolny
Got a secret, can you keep it?
nie umiem śnić

Ja idę ciągle swoją drogą
Je viens d'une ville où il n'y a plus de loi
I never thought I would put my freedom in your hands
nie mów że mnie znasz
otwieram jedną z ksiażek
I can feel it in my bones
Nie znam słowa
Skasowałam Poloneza obok kina w mur
Hej, ja przed Tobą się rozbieram
Jestem dziewczyną lat 47

And just like that it's over
Trochę deszczu
Powiedz mi, czy wszystko okey?
I just wanna go back, back to 1999
Tak niewiele sam o sobie wiem

& in English (this is just google translating for the most part, so buyer beware)--

I woke up thinking about everything you did to me
I watch the clock tick away
wake up - you are free, you are free, you are free
Got a secret, can you keep it?
I can't dream

I keep going my own way
I come from a city where there are no more laws
I never thought I would put my freedom in your hands
don't say you know me
I open one of the books
I can feel it in my bones
I don't know the word
I crashed a Polonez into a wall next to the cinema
Hey, I'm in front of you, undressing -
I'm a 47 year old girl.

And just like that it's over.
A little rain..
Tell me, is everything okay?
I just wanna go back, back to 1999 -
I know so little about myself.

It's not bad, right?? Nostalgic and a little self-destructive and with too many I's, but plausible! A little Gender, too?? (The narration switches gender & idk, I think it works.) Anyway, you can tell my Tidal account is heavily weighted to Polish music, lol. I've only had it 5 years or so.

tadorna

Wow, under a year between posts. Just doing this because I wrote some fic and I've always put them here in the past, so why not? In order of posting:

A Farewell to Arms (1112 words) by sheldrake
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Night Manager (TV 2016)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jonathan Pine/Original Octopus Character
Characters: Jonathan Pine, Original Characters
Additional Tags: POV Second Person, reader is an octopus, reader is an arms dealer, Jonathan Pine is arms-dealer-sexual, Crack, jonathan pine x octopus, vague reference to spy/octopus sexual liaisons
Summary:

You are the most powerful octopus arms dealer in any hemisphere, but you've finally met your match in double-crossing British intelligence agent Jonathan Pine.

*

If you close the door, the night could last forever (1651 words) by Neveradullday
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Night Manager (TV 2016) RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Diego Calva/Tom Hiddleston
Characters: Diego Calva, Tom Hiddleston, Camila Morrone, Georgi Banks-Davies
Summary:

It's just a night out in Medellin.

*

In the Garden of Forking Paths (5971 words) by sheldrake
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Night Manager (TV 2016)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Teddy Dos Santos/Jonathan Pine
Characters: Teddy Dos Santos, Jonathan Pine, Corky the Cat (The Night Manager)
Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, yes both just go with it ok, Parallel Universes
Summary:

Jonathan Pine is not dead. Alex Goodwin is going out with his neighbour.

This is a gentle romantic comedy wrapped in a thin layer of violent romantic tragedy. Not a fix-it... unless it is. Depends how you look at it.

dine

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

jadelennox

I hope Nael, currently age 16-ish, is doing very well, and still writing delightful poems about tigers.

torachan

1. It's the weekend!

2. We ordered dinner from Coco Ichibanya tonight. Got the regular curry (we always get it with karaage and tonkatsu) but instead of just getting one to share, I got another order so we'd have some leftovers. For the second order I got their keema curry with cheese naan and it was also extremely delicious.

3. I got gas (and a much needed car wash) on the way to work this morning and it was down 40 cents from the last time we filled up before going to Japan. That's still about 30 cents higher than before our great leader decided attacking Iran was a smart idea, but I was really pleasantly surprised to see that not only had it not gone up, but had gone down so much.

4. Speaking of cars, we've been having so much trouble with the key fobs for the newer car that we finally took it in to the dealership. Of course they were trying to say at first that we should just replace the batteries in the fobs, but we've done that and it makes no difference. Plus it's both of them, so it's obviously something to do with the car itself. Anyway, they got that finished up today and apparently the battery in the car's sensor needed replacement, so hopefully that will have fixed it. We had also wanted them to fix the front windshield, which developed a crack the other day after the windshield wiper flew off and the metal part snapped back down and hit the glass. They didn't do anything and were saying it would be $2300 to replace it, but Carla spoke to a manager and showed him that it was not a chip or anything that caused it, but the malfunctioning wiper, so he agreed to replace it for free. They have to order the window, so we've got the car back for now and have to take it back in again next week, but I'm very glad we got these both fixed for no cost.

5. Look at these boys!

torachan

Recently Finished
A Case of Mice and Murder
First in a new to me (and apparently fairly new in general, as there are only two books so far) murder mystery series. Set at the turn of the (20th) century, a middle aged barrister gets roped into investigating a murder. This was very slow at first, but I did end up enjoying it at lot and I think I'll continue the series. I liked how the two plots came together in the end.

The Final Chapter
Another book with a murder at a writers' retreat. This is a thriller rather than a murder mystery, though. I liked it, but didn't love it.

Different Kinds of Fruit
When the MC starts sixth grade, there's a new kid in class, who identifies as non-binary. When her parents get really weird about this new friend, she assumes at first that they are transphobic, only to eventually learn that her dad is a stealth trans man and in fact is the parent who gave birth to her, not her mother. I loved this so much. I have another book by this author on my to-read list and am looking forward to reading more from him.

Busu Nante Iwanaide vol. 1
This popped up in Amazon recommended and the first volume was free to read, so I decided to give it a go and ended up liking it a lot. The MC is a woman in her 30s who was bullied for her looks in school and now wears hat/glasses/facemask when out to try and hide as much of her face as possible. She has recently been feeling heartened by the fact that lookism is getting more attention in Japan, only to find that the author of the articles she has been reading is none other than the ringleader of her high school bullies, who, while traditionally beautiful herself, now preaches about how no one is ugly and tries to help women improve their self-confidence. Unable to stand the hypocrisy, the MC goes to this woman's office meaning to stab her to death, only to be mistaken for someone interviewing for a job, and despite waving her knife around, she gets the job lol. I'm curious to see where this goes, but I liked it a lot so far.

Kinki Chihou no Aru Basho ni Tsuite vol. 1-3
Manga adaptation of a popular web novel. The premise is that someone is contacting the reader with all these articles and videos about a certain area that seems to be source of many strange occurrences, in hopes of finding out what happened to the previous person who was researching it. I'm enjoying it so far, but it's not one of my top faves.

runpunkrun

Photograph of a pomegranate (here standing in for an alien fruit) and a paring knife against a black background. Text: The Feast of St. Olaf, by Punk.

Author: Punk
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters: Team Sheppard
Rating: G
Content notes: No standard notes apply.

Size: 3,800 words

Summary: The hunting knife is twice the size of the fruit in his hand, but Ronon handles it with ease.

Read it on the AO3 or here »

( The Feast of St. Olaf )

Reblog on Tumblr
Email | The Underground | AO3

musesfool

Does anyone know where I can get a Trinity Santos icon? [eta: icon acquired!]

*

Always need some Dorianne Laux during poetry month, so here's today's poem:

Prayer
by Dorianne Laux

Sweet Jesus, let her save you, let her take
your hands and hold them to her breasts,
slip the sandals from your feet, lay your body down
on sheets beaten clean against the fountain stones.
Let her rest her dark head on your chest,
let her tongue lift the hairs like a sword tip
parting the reeds, let her lips burnish
your neck, let your eyes be wet with pleasure.
Let her keep you from that other life, as a mother
keeps a child from the brick lip of a well,
though the rope and bucket shine and clang,
though the water's hidden silk and mystery call.
Let her patter soothe you and her passions
distract you, let her show you the light
storming the windows of her kitchen, peaches
in a wooden bowl, a square of blue cloth
she has sewn to her skirt to cover the tear.
What could be more holy than the curve of her back
as she sits, her hands opening a plum.
What could be more sacred than her eyes,
fierce and complicated as the truth, your life
rising behind them, your name on her lips.
Stay there, in her bare house, the black pots
hung from pegs, bread braided and glazed
on the table, a clay jug of violet wine.
There is the daily sacrament of rasp and chisel,
another chair to be made, shelves to be hewn
cleanly and even and carefully joined
to the sun-scrubbed walls, a sharp knife
for carving odd chunks of wood into small toys
for the children. Oh Jesus, close your eyes
and listen to it, the air is alive with bird calls
and bees, the dry rustle of palm leaves,
her distracted song as she washes her feet.
Let your death be quiet and ordinary.
Either life you choose will end in her arms

*

Current Mood: thoughtful

petra

The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill + ... well really I would take just about any fictional or fictionalized city, so that's why I feel comfortable floating it as a possibility for Yuletide.

The original inspiration was "The Pushcart War set in Gotham City." I would take just about any year setting. The OG era. The social media version, complete with vigilantes with pea pin shooters.

jadelennox suggests that Alfred and General Anna are old besties, and I concur.

But, in the grand tradition of my Yuletide requests, typing this up makes me realize how much I want this story in any fictionalized 'verse of which I am sufficiently knowledgeable.

The Rivers of London take sides! You know Lady Ty is for the truckers.

Mountie under suspicion! Benton Fraser seen with pea-tack shooter! Claims it is reusable straw. Is Big Red Green?

Mélusine + trucks. Not necessarily including our protags from canon; the city is sufficiently a character to count for my purposes.

The Slow Horses investigate the pea-tack problem with their usual bumbling flair.

The Pushcart War was part of what spurred the Earth of the Expanse to implement UBI. Eh? Ehhhhh?

Manchester in 1973 is not maybe the best place, but London in 1981? Give me the Alex Drake peapin saga.

Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler III vs. trucks? :D If Palpatine can find time to reproduce, so can Throat.

Current Mood: inspired
Current Music: Life is like a hurricane / Here in Duckburg

rachelmanija

A science fiction novella about aliens, communication, and certain dark topics which are spoilery to mention. Though if you read the blurb for this book, it very strongly implies those topics and the specific shocking twist that involves them. It reminded me of China Mieville's Embassytown, though the latter benefited from its longer length.

Ro's species, along with some others, can jump into the minds of Star Eaters, the mysterious species that alone can mine the mineral that enables space travel. Ro is told that doing so is the only way to study them, and while jumping into their bodies extinguishes their minds, they are extremely long-lived beings and their minds definitely come back, so Ro is only doing the equivalent of causing a day-long blackout. The Star Eaters were apparently once enslaved, but now work voluntarily; communication with them is difficult and puzzling. Once you jump in, you're stuck for the rest of your life, but Ro is such a curious and skilled linguist that he's willing to give up everything to understand this oddly mysterious race. (I guess the possessing being's mind is supposed to only live for its species's normal lifespan? This is not explained.)

If you've read much science fiction, or many books in general, you have probably already figured out what's really going on. In fact it's so obvious that it seems strange that it takes the characters so long to do so, but of course no one knows exactly what story they're in.

Everything involving alien communication is great. But the plot is so predictable and grim that I didn't enjoy the book much.

( Read more... )

the_shoshanna

Geoff and I are leaving for the Channel Islands in a week and a half!

Whee! and also 😱

The Channel Islands were the runner-up for choice of destination last year, but we decided to go to Wales instead -- partly because we could do a supported hike there. But the hike turned out to be on the verge of too hard for us; apparently we are several years older than we were the last time we did one, which is just unfair. Anyway, this year we're just going to park ourselves in one place -- well, two places, ten days each on Jersey and Guernsey - and do day hikes out and back. Both islands seem to have good bus systems, so we should generally be able to take a bus to a starting point, hike for *mumble* hours, and catch another bus home. And we'll try to do a day trip to Herm, or maybe Sark, but Herm looks more appealing if we only go to one.

It's a little strange and stressful planning a trip entirely on our own! I mean, we had time on our own in Wales after we finished the supported hike, but we expected to be exhausted, so "eh, we'll just noodle around Aberystwyth and visit the National Library" was plenty of planning. Here, though, I keep trying to research specific hikes we could do, and getting overwhelmed by the confusing and incomplete way info is presented. Like, a site just gives a text list of walks, but I want to see them plotted on a map so I can tell where they are relative to where we're staying. An app tells how to get to the beginning of a hike by bus, but gives no information about what buses can get us home from the end. Another site shows walks on a map but says nothing about how to get to them, so I have to have the walking site, the island's bus route map (very schematic and abstract), and Google Maps open to try to cross-check bus routes and stop locations. After a while I just throw up my hands and hope that the tourist info places will have better info on site.

(Ahahahah, I initially typed "better" as "beer," and, well, yes please, that too.)

We have booked a couple of activities in advance. The seabed slopes very gradually away around the islands, so when the tide goes out it goes waaaaaaay out, and we have booked a three-hour guided walk across the exposed sea floor, which sounds amazing; and the next day we've booked a couple hours of guided sea kayaking around the coastline. Other than that, though, we're winging it!

Well, winging the day-to-day part. We have booked our hotels and our ferry tickets between Jersey and Guernsey in advance, because I don't feel comfortable trying to arrange things like that on the fly. And after our hotel snafu in Aberystwyth, I have made sure to directly contact each hotel with a plausible-sounding query ("we'll be arriving before our room is likely to be ready, would we be able to drop our luggage off?" is always a good one) that translates to "please confirm that you have actually received our reservation and planned for our arrival"! Yes, this wouldn't be a problem if I booked directly instead of going through Booking.com, but the fact is that many hotels don't have direct booking anymore; they outsource it all to third parties like B.c.

And of course there's the ongoing uncertainly about the world's supply of jet fuel. Will we be able to get home? Geoff keeps bringing this question up, and saying we ought to look into our options if there's a problem, but he doesn't come up with anything really actionable. Other than exploring UK-to-CA cruises? But I'm like, there is absolutely nothing we can do to affect the possibility of our being stranded for a bit; if British Airways cancels our flight it will be on them to find us an alternate means of travel; it will still be both faster and cheaper to wait for a new flight than to try to sail across; we are fortunate enough to have the ability to absorb an unexpected extra few nights in a hotel if necessary; sweetie, you are stressed about this and you're dealing with your stress by just venting it in my direction, please stop. I mean, yes, it's a stressful prospect (and I acknowledge that the whole goddamn world is a stressful prospect right now and "what if our vacation in a few days longer and more stressful than planned?" is completely a "diamond shoes gave me a blister" problem), but since there is absolutely nothing we can do I prefer not to spend nervous energy on it, thanks.

Anyway, on top of all that hiking, we want to visit some of the Neolithic passage tombs, and also some of the museums of the Nazi occupation. *shiver* And I plan to eat my own weight in seafood, although Geoff won't join me in that. And maybe we will even lounge about!

dine

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torachan

1. This morning on my walk I stopped in the bakery I always pass by since there were no customers at the time (a miracle), just to see what pastries they had in the case, and they had a lemon muffin with ube frosting, so I had to get it. Then since I was getting breakfast for myself, I felt I had to stop next door at the bagel place to get something for Carla as well, and they had a new carrot cake latte, so I got that for myself. The latte was fine, but I couldn't really detect anything carroty or cakey about it, but the muffin was really good.

2. Today was a work from home day again and I just took it easy. I am going in tomorrow, but it's been nice to have a mostly WFH week to ease back in to things.

3. One of my regular Thursday meetings was cancelled this morning, and the other (a 4pm one) was cancelled about half an hour before its start. My kind of day!

4. Jasper has claimed the top perch of the new cat tree as his own and has already spent many, many hours curled up there, but Ollie is the only one who's shown interest in the hole. We've never had a cat tree with a hole platform before, but watching him poke up through the hole to play with the dangle toy gave me some of the most joyous moments of my life. Truly a still photo cannot convey how silly and adorable he looked.

torachan

I had a really hard time getting to sleep that first night despite having gone a long time without sleep during our travel (no sleep for me on the plane) and the bed being relatively comfortable. Carla seemed to sleep well, though. I think I got a total of about 2.5 hours and then ended up getting up around 4am or something.

( Osaka Kaiyukan Aquarium )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

DEAR ABBY: I have conflicting feelings regarding Valentine's Day. I believe it is a celebration for couples rather than co-workers. My husband's office staff (eight young women under the age of 30) insist on celebrating Valentine's Day with decorations on all office doors, complete with hearts and cupids. They have a catered lunch with specialty treats of chocolate-covered strawberries, fudge hearts and the customary heart candies that read "Be Mine," "I Love You", etc.

My husband has been with this company for 30 years, and we've been together for 15 of them, but this Valentine's Day celebration began only four years ago. I am 65 and have worked 20-plus years for a Fortune 500 corporate office and NEVER has Valentine's Day been celebrated in the office. Christmas, yes. Fourth of July, yes. But Valentine's Day? Am I just old and cranky? This has been a source of contention between my husband and me since it began. -- NOT LOVIN' THAT IN TEXAS

( Read more... )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

( Cut for queerphobia )

musesfool

It's been a few years since I posted some Shakespeare on his birthday, but I am tired so have one of the most famous poems in the Western canon:

Sonnet 18: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
By William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

*

I was all excited that it's Thursday, thinking about how there'd be a new episode of The Pitt until I remembered, alas, that there will be no new episodes until next January. Sigh.

I keep meaning to post my thoughts here and not doing it, so in brief, my thoughts on the season 2 finale of The Pitt: ( spoilers )

I guess this sounds like I had a lot of complaints but I really loved this season - I just thought the writing fell down a little sometimes, for some characters.

*

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Get Him Back - Olivia Rodrigo

twistedchick

Today is my grandfather's birthday; he would be 155 years old.
( cut for family history )

raven

So mostly these days I am obsessed with The Pitt! I love the show so much, for itself, and because it's such a natural successor to MASH and other shows I have loved. I've said on Bluesky that it's the only show I've ever come across that really understands how teaching and growth and mentoring happen in a professional environment - fandom is full of academia stories, and indeed academics, and school and high school stories, but not so much the grown-up, affirming, important work of teaching someone to do your job because you, they and the job all matter. (What do I teach people to do! Not save lives. But it matters. I had a lovely, lovely email from one of my team before she went off on maternity leave that said wonderful things about my teaching, about what she'd learned from me, how her practice had changed as a result of me, at which point I had to go and lie down and cry for a while. When Robby says with emphasis, "This is a teaching hospital", it makes me think of it.

(Brief outline: Robby, otherwise Dr Michael Robinavitch, is a warm, scathing, compassionate soul who runs an emergency department in Pittsburgh, it's an ensemble cast of interns, resident doctors, patients, nurses and others and Robby is the keystone of it all in a tired, mentally ill kind of a way. Each episode of the show covers an hour, so the entire season covers a single shift. It's very good. Also Robby is played by Noah Wyle - and, as the show's executive producers lost a litigation against the IP-holders for ER, he is emphatically not John Carter. I love this. Robby feels, and is, beautifully imagined: a working-class Jewish man, who wears a magen David necklace, all because Carter was a WASP with a trust fund.)

I also love Trinity Santos, a brilliant lovely Filipina asshole of a lesbian, and Jack Abbot, who is Robby's friend and also mirror image - being to the night shift what Robby is the day - and also fascinating for himself. He's a former MASH combat medic which is what decided me for sure that the show deliberately draws on its predecessor. The Pitt isn't a sitcom, but it has the warmth MASH had; and Abbot, who is a lower-leg amputee, embodies some of its ambivalence. (And! In s2 they have someone deliver Henry Blake's "young men die" speech, with the same blocking as the original. I love it.)

Anyway I love this show. It is so rich and funny and so fucking human, all the damn time. Robby's PTSD is from covid, and his nightmares are of full PPE - and I was like, okay, do I want to watch this. Robby has PTSD from treating covid patients but my dad died from treating covid patients. But I did want to watch it, because it takes what it does seriously. I want to write a fic, about Robby and ( s2 spoiler ), and I also want it to be a daemon AU, because I am insane. I haven't written anything good in a year and like I said I am insane. Maybe I should just ask people to give me fic prompts.

the_shoshanna

No, not that kind. The hard-to-find kind.

I carry a backpack rather than a shoulderbag, because I like to have my hands free and I don't like the way a shoulderbag can flop down in front of me when I bend forward. Also it's easier to carry a lot in a backpack, which is important for grocery shopping, day hiking, etc. For a decade or more, up until last summer, my everyday carry was a basic Jansport school-type backpack. But while we were in Wales I realized that a) the rain cover I'd put on it was useless (almost lost my passport to water damage, YIKES) and b) it was fraying dangerously thin. Which, after so many years, it was entitled to do! But that has sent me on A Quest.

I'd made do with that basic Jansport for years, but now that I'm exploring options, I have very particular requirements! And I can't find a pack that meets them, argh.

I want a 28- to 32-liter capacity, a proper hip belt, and a flat back so that I can put an iPad or a folder of papers in it, against my own back, without risking them getting bent. (In other words, not a curved-for-ventilation back like this one.) I very much want panel loading rather than top loading, which I find awkward and inconvenient, although I might settle for top loading if everything else were amazingly good. It's hard for me to imagine a really good pack without load lifter straps. And I'd love it to have shoulder straps styled after running vests, with lots of storage, although now we're getting into "I want sparkles on it!" territory.

On the spot in Wales, I bought a pack at a local Trespass store. Its hip belt was reasonably good, but had no storage pockets. It claimed a 30L capacity, but I think it lied; it felt more like 25. And when I bought it I wasn't thinking about the fact that the curved back was going to be a dealbreaker; I didn't have the iPad or a portfolio of papers with me and since it hadn't been an issue with the old Jansport, it didn't occur to me. So when we got home I offloaded it; tried unsuccessfully to sell it and ended up giving it to Geoff, who wants to give it a try.

To replace it, I bought a North Face Surge 2 off Poshmark. It claims a capacity of 32L, but while it has more capacity than the Trespass, it still doesn't feel like 32L. And it's relatively heavy, which isn't great for day hiking. It does have a flat back, but its hip belt, although it exists (and can tuck away when I'm just carrying a light load around town), is fairly minimal, doesn't transfer as much weight as a proper one would, and also has no storage pockets.

So I bought an REI Venturi 30 off Goodwill. It has much better capacity while weighing less, and a good hip belt. I think the torso may be a little short for me, but it's okay. However, the photos I scrutinized online before buying it still misled me; its back is curved. I've bought a storage clipboard to put the iPad and papers in, but it's still a bit of a kludge; it's an awkward thing to pack other things around, and it's a bit flimsy.

Meanwhile I've kept on surfing alllllll the dealer and review sites, looking for my perfect pack. For a while I thought I'd found it in the Osprey Tempest Velocity 30; I love Osprey packs in general (that's what I use as luggage), and this one was where I learned that running-vest-style shoulder straps are a thing and fell in love with the idea. I almost bought it -- but the fact that it's not only top loading but has a stupid little flap over the top, rather than a proper lid, killed it for me. (At least at list price; if I can find a used one going cheap, I might give it a try.)

Then I stumbled on what may actually be my unicorn! The Arc’teryx Aerios 30 looks absolutely amazing and I wants it, precious, I wants it nowwwwwwwwww.

It's discontinued, nobody has it in stock, and I can't find anybody selling a used one. Sigh.

ETA: I swear I didn't see any yesterday, but today there are a handful of them showing on eBay! ...but they are CA$400 and up, not counting any import duties or taxes because they're all coming from the US or Asia, and I'm certainly not paying that much for something I can't return, and possibly not for something I could, since I have a hard time imagining that even this pack is that good. I mean, I paid US$33 for the REI Venturi, and it's acceptable.

wychwood

So basically these are all the same song, right:

Paul Simon - Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend
Robyn - Call Your Girlfriend

What else am I missing that goes on this list? And are there any equivalents about boyfriends? The only thing that came to mind was the Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You, which isn't quite the same vibe.

rydra_wong

It is currently 50% off on Steam, which I believe is as good as it gets in the post-Elden Ring era.

rydra_wong

I can STRONGLY rec Chants of Sennaar to anyone who enjoys deduction/puzzle games, and in particular the micro-genre of games that have translating a conlang (in this case, multiple conlangs) as their central mechanic.

Watch on YouTube

Looks like Sable, plays like a cross between Return of the Obra Dinn and Heaven's Vault.

(It makes the excellent choice which Sable also made and which more indie games should go for, namely putting all your characters in face-hiding hoods or masks so you can completely avoid uncanny valley bad face animation and spend your resources on other things instead.)

Made my brain ache in a good way and made me feel clever. I did have to draw maps (my spatial orientation is terrible, so others may not need to except for one specific maze-like area), and make assorted paper notes to solve various puzzles.

You have to not only successfully translate each language individually, but, later in the game, interpret conversations between pairs of languages. This requires knowing that the languages have different word order -- in a very simple way -- one language does object-first Yoda-speak, several languages vary in how they form plurals, etc., but you do have to be able to translate in a grammatically correct way, not just word by word.

And to get to the "true ending," the game requires you to go all out and "speak" the languages, by using a given language to correctly describe a picture you are given (with no text).

I admit I did get a tiny bit emotional when I made it to the end.

Has a subsidiary stealth mechanic, which I mostly enjoyed; near the very end of the game, it did briefly hit the point of requiring a somewhat quick response, but was still ultimately within the capacity of my abysmal reflexes. Nonetheless, it's not a zero-coordination-required game.

dine

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torachan

1. I had a WFH day today so we went down to DCA for lunch. It was such a nice day weather-wise (just the right amount of warm, lots of cloud cover for the most part but not just a grey sky) and the crowds were low. We had some delicious food from the Food and Wine Festival, which wraps up this weekend, and since it's been a month since we were there, there was lots of new merch to admire.

2. We were out for about five hours, which is the longest we've been away from home since we got back, and we were a little worried we might come home to another pee incident, but there was no pee! Jasper was super needy this morning (but he often is on mornings I work from home) and we had a good half-hour snuggle at my desk before leaving. He did hork on the sofa while we were out, but I would rather deal with a hundred incidents of vomit than a single pee incident, so while it wasn't ideal, it wasn't a big deal, either.

3. One thing I do not miss about Japan is the allergies. I have in the past decade or so developed some degree of allergies at home as well, having not ever had any growing up or in my early adulthood, but not to the degree that I get them in Japan. Before our trip, I think the weather here was bringing them out more as I did have some reactions many days, if not all, but I have been blessedly sniffle-free since getting back (though today my eyes are a bit stingy).

4. Molly's showing off her perfect snoot.

torachan

It's been exactly a month since we've been to Disneyland. Well, our Disneyland anyway. We had originally planned to go last weekend, but were still too worn our from our trip, so we put in for a mid-week trip today and went down for lunch.

( Read more... )

celli

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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

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Happy Wednesday!

I'm taking search offline sometime today to upgrade the server to a new instance type. It should be down for a day or so -- sorry for the inconvenience. If you're curious, the existing search machine is over 10 years old and was starting to accumulate a decade of cruft...!

Also, apparently these older machines cost more than twice what the newer ones cost, on top of being slower. Trying to save a bit of maintenance and cost, and hopefully a Wednesday is okay!

Edited: The other cool thing is that this also means that the search index will be effectively realtime afterwards... no more waiting a few minutes for the indexer to catch new content.

vass

Okay, well, three weeks behind is better than two months. Hi!

Books
Read T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Grace for the first time, and found it soothingly undemanding.

Listened to the audiobook of Rick Morton's Mean Streak, about Robodebt, on the strength of how excellent Morton's livetweeting was during the Royal Commission.

I found Mean Streak initially a bit hard going not just because of the awfulness of the subject matter (which I'd factored in) but because of Morton's extended literary riffs (in the first seven chapters, he draws detailed analogies with Heller's Catch-22, Kafka's The Trial, Borges' entire body of work, and Piranesi's Carceri.

Reading this as I was over Easter, I began to anticipate that any moment now he'd go "According to the Christian gospels, Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by an uncaring bureaucracy. Do you know who else was crucified by an uncaring bureaucracy? Welfare recipients under Robodebt!" like a reverse youth pastor, but he never did, and eventually I came to understand the analogies as not an excessive and unnecessary stylistic choice but rather the last defences of a mind besieged by Lovecraftian horrors.

There was some levity, though: Morton and his publisher were obliged to allow some of their subjects to exercise their right of reply. He provided space for this as an appendix at the end of the book. There were no real surprises in the politicians' responses, just some unpleasant reminders for readers, e.g. Stuart Robert exists and is presumably the same species as us.

Kathryn Campbell's reply, however, was the funniest part of the whole (admittedly deadly serious) book. It was amazing.

Just knowing she paid her lawyers, plural, to draft and send this document to Morton's publishers for inclusion in his book, is such a wonderful reminder of the wide variety of people in this world.

Morton could not possibly have condemned her as harshly as her own self-defence did.

One of the allegations Campbell disputes, in this rebuttal which took 57 minutes 56 seconds for Rick Morton to read (the whole audiobook being 15 hours 32 minutes) is that she is a micromanager.

Another is that (as Morton stated) the commissioner said she "failed to address in any manner concerns about the illegality of income averaging, despite being aware of concerns about the illegality of the scheme".

Having already argued that Commissioner Holmes was wrong; and then that Commissioner Holmes' above finding was only the commissioner's opinion, not a finding of fact; she then felt the need to stipulate that Commissioner Holmes' wording was not "failed to address in any manner," it was "did nothing of substance".

She didn't say I didn't do anything at all, she said I did fuck all. Unless you correct the record to reflect that the Royal Commissioner's report into the worst public service fuckup of the century (so far) said that I did fuck all, not nothing at all, I'll sue you.

Ms Campbell either has never read Much Ado About Nothing (act IV, scene 2), or she did, and she took it as personal advice and unlike Dogberry had the power to ensure she was writ down an ass.

Currently reading: Sax Brightwell's Low Dawn and the audiobook of Rachel Neumeier's Tuyo.

Fandom
Posted a thing.

Crafts
Got around to packing up and sending another Sekrit Project.

Tech
Started watching a five hour YouTube video about data structures and algorithms, then (half an hour in) spent the evening making a number guessing game in Twine Harlowe, using binary search.

Next time I'll use Python or Javascript or something. I don't care that I don't know Javascript.

The problem is, I keep telling myself I'll just do a quick snack-sized learning activity on my phone, and Twine (or another thing I've tried recently, jsdares.com) will seem so convenient and then I'll be in a self-made hell of how unsuited their web-based interpreters are for mobile, ugh.

Garden
Bought some calendula seeds to sow.

Cats
Their previous favourite toy, the Mousie, is on stress leave: after some gastric issues it was eventually diagnosed with disembowelment.

I'm happy to say that Ash and Dory are welcoming the Mousie's substitute, the Birdie, with full lethal force.

How are you all?

mific posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Ilya Rozanov
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: christianpuppetshow HR art on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: Gorgeous colours in this nearly single-colour painting of Ilya by the lake, bathed in sunset.
Link: Drawing Ilya at sunset, backup link here

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Elizabeth Weir, Teyla Emmagan, Radek Zelenka
Rating: Mature
Length: 13,319
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Rachael Sabotini on AO3
Themes: Arranged marriage, AU - royalty, Diplomatic marriage, Politics, Mutual pining

Summary: "It is your duty to the empire to marry Rodney McKay."

Reccer's Notes: This is an interesting romantic romp set in a somewhat steampunk AU where John is married off by his cousin the empress Elizabeth, to Rodney, a leader in the neighbouring nation. John is part of treaty agreements to negotiate peace. Consummating his marriage proves difficult due to Rodney being a workaholic, anxious about never having had sex with a man before, and, that common marriage of convenience trope, as John can end the marriage after a year and a day if he chooses. There are obstacles and pining and inadequate communication, but eventually John makes a place for himself in Rodney's labs, proves his loyalty, and we get the happy ending. A fun read!

Fanwork Links: The Spare

dine

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torachan

1. Today was my first day back at work at the office. Lots of meetings and not a lot else, but since I did all my catching up yesterday, that was fine. I'm planning to work from home tomorrow (and maybe Thursday?).

2. I asked Carla to make hummus for me today while I was at work, since I usually make some on the weekend to have for weekday lunches but hadn't gotten to it, and she did make it for me, but also first mistakenly opened a can of pinto beans instead of chickpeas, so she made refried beans and we had that with some more tacos for dinner as there's still plenty of carnitas and fresh tortillas from yesterday, and they were both delicious and the perfect amount for two servings. (Though we still have more taco fixings, so if there had been more, we could have finished them up later this week.)

3. There was a decent chance of rain today but it pretty much didn't rain. No rain at all in Gardena where I was, and Carla said there was a little dampness on the ground mid day but that was it. I really have had enough to rain for now, so I'm glad.

4. I spotted Tuxie in an unusual place the other day (in the neighbors' front yard). He seemed startled to see me, too, lol.

twistedchick

I am posting from the computer before my present one -- this one dates from the early 2000s, and is a bit slow. My good 2019 computer is in the shop getting a new keyboard -- apparently when one key is busted all of them are and the entire top of the laptop gets replaced. It's the down arrow that didn't work.

And because of that I have about 10 days either with only my phone (I will not describe going through 100+ new emails there; it is tedious) or this elderly one that I have purposely kept on an older operating system because this lappie has really excellent older software that simply doesn't work on the more recent op systems. So I am relaxing, watching old stored movies (Skyfall, anyone?) and doing offline sorting of books and papers and so on.

ETA: The guy at the shop said I could have them do the work in-house, for about 10 days, or they could send it to another shop where they would mail it back after about 5 days. I do not trust the current postmaster, or his cuts to service, or the possibility that it would end up sitting on a shelf somewhere and not come back, so I agreed to the 10 days or so.

I'm also feeling the losses, and letting myself feel them and letting them go through me instead of "braving it out" or trying to ignore them and having everything get worse later. I don't want worse later; now is enough. I can bear now. I am remembering so many little things, and big things, aond old things and it all just works.

It also means I'm sleeping a lot, around my meds schedule, which is less easy than it sounds. Basically, I have a BP pill and a blood thinner, each of which needs to be taken 2x a day about 12 hours apart, but not at the same time because the stress on my heart is too much. So I am carefully scheduling the one for 9 am and pm and the other for 10-11 am and pm, and that is working. Otherwise my heart bangs until it wakes me up, which is not fun.

I'm also handspinning silk roving in various colors; it's one of my favorite things to do while watching tv, because looking from the work in my hands to the set across the room keeps my eyes from getting stuck at the shorter distance. I did maybe 15 yards, three ply, today, which is 45 yards of single ply. You do the 3-ply by putting a big slipknot loop into the end of it, then continue to loop through the loop and twirl the spindle in the opposite direction of the single ply's twist. The result is useful, not so thin that it falls apart, and looks good. I am thinking of crocheting small keepsake bags from them.

That's about what's happening here, give or take a freeze warning or hearing the fox calling in the park half a block away late at night. I'm glad of that fox and its kin; they are welcome to come to my yard to eat mice whenever they wish.

petra

Covid: Speaking Out About Rubynye by

werpiper.

Current Mood: grieving
Current Music: Hey, everybody, got a favor to ask: shut the fuck up and put on your mask!

musesfool

I logged off yesterday around 4:30 and started the process of making whipped ganache, and as per usual, the amount of time it takes to get the temperature of the ganache down to 75°F is RIDICULOUS even when I put the bowl on the window sill with the window open (there is a screen) and a cold breeze coming in. I guess the one good part about how long it took was that I was able to make and eat dinner in the middle of it, so I didn't have to do the whole thing hungry. Then I loaded those dishes into the dishwasher and started separating eggs to make vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. And got some yolk in with the whites so had to start over. And then cracked an egg and it was frozen, so unusable for my purposes.

I did eventually get 4 egg whites in a bowl with a cup of sugar and set it over the pot of simmering water so I could whisk it until it heated to 160°F because aside from my own fear of salmonella, the whole point here was to celebrate my pregnant co-worker so I absolutely needed to make sure everything was safe. It's always amazing to me how they double in size as you whisk and heat them and eventually they hit the temp, so I whipped them into stiff peaks (not by hand), which took about twice the amount of time it normally does (physics! always working against me!), but did eventually happen. All was well as I added in the butter, but then I added the vanilla bean paste (gotta have the specks!) and it curdled. So I had to reheat it to melting, chill it, and whip it while adding another 1/4 cup of butter, but it did eventually whip up beautifully. Both frostings piped like a dream, too, since they were not cold. Pics are here. And they were much appreciated by my co-workers! At the end of the day, when I went into the lunchroom to put the leftovers in the fridge, I found someone packing them up to take home. She was like, did you want them? And I was like, no, I was just going to put them in the fridge for tomorrow. I'm pretty sure she did not know I was the person who made them, but that's okay.

Work itself was fine - we spent most of our team meeting eating cupcakes while everyone else talked about their cats - but I was 3/4 of the way there this morning when I realized I'd left my ID badge in my old bag (I got a new bag for work recently, and used it for the first time today, and I think I like it. It is quite large but the strap is the perfect length for a large crossbody, imo), but thankfully they have guest ID cards so I was able to go about my day without interruption. I did make myself a note to remember my ID card next month when I go in. (well, unless there is a LIRR strike, but there probably won't be.)

***

Today's poem:

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

—Ellen Bass, from Mules of Love, 2002.

***

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: switching btwn the Mets and the hockey

cimorene

I finally got around to reinstalling Linux Mint on my laptop last week so that I could back up the last two years of photos. Going through the photos of 2024-2025 was wild. Wax and I have both been in such a fog of depression that we sometimes barely remembered the things in them, and it all feels vague and like a long time ago. Haha, great.

Anyway, the process of updating my laptop didn't go as planned.

First Tristana threw the external on the floor while it was in the act of copying, thus more-or-less bricking it (a computer repair store MIGHT be able to recover the data). It's possible that there wasn't very much on it that we don't have elsewhere, but I'm not quite sure without taking apart both desktops to access my hds from Wax's to check.

And then signing into Firefox went wrong and it failed to sync my bookmarks, even though they're all there still in the mobile version. The backup of my ff profile that contained the bookmarks was on the external but had not copied before The Incident. So I need to try removing and reinstalling the browser before I have to give up and move them manually, because apparently even though sync refusing to work is a not-uncommon issue, going by the support threads everywhere, they actually removed the "export bookmarks" button! ( Read more... )

Needless to say, I did consider switching browsers, but that feels like too many more steps to tackle at the moment.

dine

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torachan

1. Back to work today, but since I knew the majority of my day would just be catching up on messages, I decided to work from home. Jasper was extra clingy so I'm glad I was able to snuggle with him so much. And I did get all caught up on email and teams!

2. The other day I saw a post on instagram about some viral loaded fries (the original was orange chicken but they've added a char siu version as well) and it just happens it's at a Chinese restaurant not that far from us. They have delivery, but the fries aren't on the online menu and by the time they got to us they'd be soggy anyway, so we decided to go there for lunch. Since it's gone viral, we decided an early lunch would be best, so we got there around 10:30 (they open at 10) and there was no one else there except someone picking up for delivery, which was good because they only have three tables. We got the char siu fries and they were even better than expected.

The fries are tossed in orange chicken sauce and then there's a bit of melted cheese and sriracha mayo under all that char siu pork. This is like a regular square takeout container but filled so full it would barely be able to close. We shared it and still only ate half. Would definitely get it again, and we want to try the orange chicken version as well.

3. The restaurant is in the same shopping center as a big Mexican market, so we did some shopping there since we usually don't get over there (now we have another reason to go) and got some stuff for carnitas tacos for dinner and those were also delicious.

4. We figured out who the mystery pee-er was, which I'm glad for, because now we know who to keep an eye on. It turns out it's Jasper, which was one of my top suspects. The reason we found out for sure is that I had to throw away all three of the warming beds when we got back because they'd all been peed in and while we'd washed one before, there had been too many recent pee incidents, I didn't want to leave any possibility of a smell. I ordered another one and that came today and not long after we put it down, he peed in it. D:

He is not having trouble using the box, so I don't think this is anything health related, just stress due to us being gone too long, and then I think he now has an association with those warming beds, so thankfully it's not cold weather right now, and when I do get some more for the winter, I'll try a different type and hope that it's been long enough and they're different enough that it doesn't trigger him.

He's such a needy baby, but he's always been a bit weird about Alex, so while he was okay around her in general, he didn't go to her for snuggles while we were gone like Ollie did (Ollie went all in on the snuggles with her; she was not prepared lol), so I think that's what caused him to act out. Hopefully now that we're home and all problem spots have been eliminated, we won't have any more issues.

5. Chloe was checking out the new cat tree.

azurelunatic

So we have Lawn Dragons. A while ago, an inflatable dragon so new that I didn't even have a lawn picture of it got caught in a wind storm and partially broken. It still lit up, but the blower didn't go, and I thought it was probably some broken wires. And maybe we could fix it.

So Belovedest draped it over the lounge chair on the porch, to dry out.

And there it sat.

I admit that I am short-tempered sometimes.

It's lounging season, I think a little early this year. So the dragon and I have been sharing the chair. And much to my annoyance, we have been sharing it with tiny black ants. Which have been using the deflated dragon as a pathway to climb up onto the chair's side tables (it's a retired infusion chair, so it reclines, has tables, and a place to attach an IV pole) and even on to my very person. I discovered this yesterday.

What losing my temper looked like this time was an enticing Craigslist ad for the salvage-condition dragon (free to the first to arrive), along with reviving my ad to get rid of the aftermarket KitchenAid beater that just barely didn't fit my mixer bowl. Which had been hanging around for months and was starting to develop lichen.

They were both gone by the time I got outside this afternoon.

Current Mood: Satisfied
Current Location: Watching the sunset

wychwood

I've been sort of meaning to make a gaming post for a while, but also: I have not been playing games really at all, unless you count 2025 (obsessively and continuously). However, Terra Nil just turned up 60% off (for another four days! there's time!) and I bought it on Saturday and have already played over seven hours of it - I'm playing on the easy mode, and find it intensely soothing. I have restored four or five ecosystems, taken photographs of numerous wild animals, sworn at the annoying recycling system as I build numerous extra buildings in order to remove all the buildings from the map, and generally enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Other things I have played, mostly extremely briefly, since my last real gaming post in (*gulp*) July: ( actually quite a long list, but average playtime of about half-an-hour )

Feel free to ask if you're interested in any of them! Most of them do look like things I could enjoy if I were in a game-playing space, but very clearly I have not been.

musesfool

There was some good hockey over the weekend, though given some of the match-ups, I am rooting for teams I have never rooted for before. It's very disconcerting! I mean, some of it is just, I guess I hate this team less than that team (e.g., Pens vs Flyers, and I guess it's cool that Crosby is making what may be his final Cup run but ugh, Pittsburgh; otoh, the only thing the Flyers have going for them is Gritty, and that is not enough, considering everything else about them) or I hate this team so much more than I hate that team (I am rooting for Montreal, my friends. The Habs! I don't even know who I am anymore! But Ryan McDonagh notwithstanding, I do not like the Bolts at all). And as much as I'd like to see Kreider win (a hilarious rebuke to Drury and Dolan), I can't root for Joel Quenneville (and also Anaheim is not making a run).

In some cases, the choice is easy (I still have not forgiven the Kings for 2012 and I have a fondness for the Avs; I root for Dallas because of

angelgazing, and also because while I'd love to see Mats Zuccarello win a Cup, Bill Guerin can go fuck himself, as can VGK and Carter Hart, so Mammoth all the way, there - plus the ZAMMOTH (or the Mammboni, if you're nasty)).

Overall, I would like to see Buffalo win it all, and I enjoyed their game, but if it has to be a Canadian team, at this point, I would pick Montreal over Ottawa (disqualified due to Brady Tkachuk) or Edmonton (ugh, McDavid's vibes are rancid, imo). At least I like Martin St. Louis, and their kids seem fun and their game was also entertaining.

And as I said on bsky last night, Henrik Lundqvist looked like an ANGEL in his silver suit. He just gets more handsome every time I see him. *dreamy sigh*

Anyway!

Today's poem:

White Noise
by Alice Pettway

I ordered silence online,
from the makers

of that robot vacuum,
the one that terrifies cats.

They claim it will ricochet
through my life, siphoning

the mewling of the computer
in its dark cubby, the shiver

of leaves, even the snap of fish beaks
against coral, the air conditioner

accelerating endlessly
around its distant track.

I asked customer support
if there was an attachment

to suck the cacophony
out of my head. For this,

I said, I would pay extra,
whatever they asked, really.

No response came.
I lay on the rug. The machine

ran along my legs, the side
of my face. I imagined

as loudly as possible, waiting
for the indicator to switch on,

for the whir and pinch of suction.
The room is quiet now.

Even the stuffing in the couch
does not exhale beneath my weight.

*

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, Op. 11 - Frederic Chopin

dine

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torachan

1. Yesterday was Record Store Day (a day to support indie record shops where they have a lot of limited release albums for sale) and we went to Record Surplus when they opened at nine only to find that there was a huge line all the way down the block. The people working there were passing out order sheets so you could write down the things you were interested in (including backups if your top choices were sold out) and Carla filled hers out, but after waiting for about 45 minutes and seeing the line barely move, she decided to tap out and we just went home.

Today we went to see if they had anything left over that she wanted and found several albums on her wishlist, including one of her top most wanted. We probably could have gone back yesterday afternoon or evening to check again, too, as there were only a handful of people who joined the line after us, so after that initial rush you were probably able to just go in the store normally, but it worked out in the end.

2. Tonight Alex came over for her usual Sunday dinner and TV and we were able to give her all the souvenirs we'd collected for her, which turned out to be quite a lot as we'd just been picking up stuff here and there that we thought was something she'd like. We actually found several small items with Gaara from Naruto, her favorite character, just at random shops, when last year we'd had to really go deep into the anime shop areas to find anything Naruto. Maybe it's having a comeback?

3. We've decided to get back into bike riding and that we'd like to get ebikes. The area we live in has a lot of flat spaces, but then also some directions you can't go without a hill, often a steep and/or long one, and having the ebike to get back up the hill would be very helpful, especially for Carla, and (hopefully) make us more likely to actually get out and use the bikes.

I had hoped that there would be somewhere around here that buys used bikes, but there doesn't seem to be, so I'm cleaning the old bikes up to try and sell on Nextdoor or Craigslist or something. I don't think I'll get much for them now, but they cost enough that I'd rather not just put them out on the curb for free. I got mine dusted off and pumped up the tires and took it out for a couple mile ride today and it was so nice. I haven't really ridden my bike much since we got a car again and I wasn't using it for my daily work commute. I'm looking forward to more bike riding in my future, and I think I might even take the old one out a bit while waiting for a buyer.

4. Lately Gemma has been spending a lot of time with Chloe and Chloe has been very tolerant of her. We often see them together on Carla's bed, but the other day they were both out in the dining room by the window.

jamethiel

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musesfool

I realize I never followed up on the vanilla cupcakes and they did stay moist for 4 days in an airtight container and didn't get that weird texture where you can tell they're going bad, nor did they dry out, so. A++ on the hot milk method. So I am making them today, as well as my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe (it is actually a cake recipe but it makes 40 mini cupcakes as written) and then tomorrow I will make whipped ganache for the vanilla and vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream for the chocolate, and bring them to work on Tuesday, since one of my attorneys is pregnant, and this is likely the last time she'll be in the office with us until the fall. She was all, "no need to make a fuss!" but my boss was like, "Cupakes? :D :D :D" so of course, I was also like, "Cupcakes! :D :D :D"

*

Today's poem:

Mother, Kitchen
By Ouyang Jianghe
(Translated from the Chinese by Austin Woerner )

Where the immemorial and the instant meet, opening and distance appear.
Through the opening: a door, crack of light.
Behind the door, a kitchen.

Where the knife rises and falls, clouds gather, disperse.
A lightspeed joining of life and death, cut
in two: halves of a sun, of slowness.

Halves of a turnip.
A mother in the kitchen, a lifetime of cuts.
A cabbage cut into mountains and rivers,
a fish, cut along its leaping curves,
laid on the table
still yearning for the pond.

Summer's tofu
cut into premonitions of snow.
A potato listens to the onion-counterpoint
of the knife, dropping petals at its strokes:
self and thing, halves of nothing
at the center of time.
Where gone and here meet, the knife rises, falls.

But this mother is not holding a knife.

What she has been given is not a knife
but a few fallen leaves.
The fish leaps over the blade from the sea
to the stars. The table is in the sky now,
the market has been crammed into the refrigerator,
and she cannot open cold time.

***

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Mets vs Cubs on tv

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Page Summary

the_shoshanna - Do I know anyone in Vancouver?
rydra_wong - Relevant to the medical needs of at least 70% of my social circles
heresluck - and now this part
omens - Memeing along
tadorna - (no subject)
dine - stronger, harder, better
jadelennox - The tiger was asleep on my knees until recently.
torachan - Daily Happiness
torachan - Weekly Reading
runpunkrun - Fic: The Feast of St. Olaf [SGA, Team, G, 3800 words]
musesfool - Either life you choose will end in her arms
petra - Yuletide request #1 for 2026
rachelmanija - The Language of Liars, by S. L. Huang
the_shoshanna - I never said why I want a better backpack
dine - go to hell! and while you're there, why don't you grab me a juice box
torachan - Daily Happiness
torachan - 2026 Japan Trip Part 2 (4/4)
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
musesfool - But thy eternal summer shall not fade
twistedchick - 155 years
raven - (no subject)
the_shoshanna - ISO a unicorn backpack
wychwood - side-effect of shuffling playlists
rydra_wong - Also, in the unlikely event that I've sold anyone on Dark Souls
rydra_wong - *un-Babels your Tower*
dine - undiagnosed & unmedicated
torachan - Daily Happiness
torachan - 2026 Disneyland Trip #20 (4/22/26)
celli - mostly about podfic
musesfool - fire creates its own weather
mark in dw_maintenance - Search maintenance
vass - Things
mific in fanart_recs - Drawing Ilya at sunset by christianpuppetshow (SFW)
mific in fancake - SGA: The Spare by Rachael Sabotini (wickedwords)
dine - stupid Canadian wolf bird
torachan - Daily Happiness
twistedchick - As it has turned out...
petra - Ny | Rubynye | MinoanMiss | browngirl's cause of death - COVID-19
musesfool - a plain face, no charming smile, no violet eyes
cimorene - Should I have cleaned out my bookmarks before? Yes, but now's not the time!
dine - guess who's back, back again?
torachan - Daily Happiness
azurelunatic - A Farewell to Draggon
wychwood - basically i'm either reading or i'm playing games and right now i am in The Reading Zone
musesfool - they claim it will ricochet through my life
dine - honey, pass me my bathtime toaster please
torachan - Daily Happiness
jamethiel - I have a clean house!
musesfool - halves of nothing at the center of time

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