Reading

Entry tags:

book report

Flying Solo, by Linda Holmes

Reminiscent of early modern Jennifer Cruisie: A single woman (size 18) (approaching forty) returns to her small Maine hometown to clean out her great-aunt's house, reconnects with her high school boyfriend, and runs afoul of a local antique dealer.

Reminiscent, only not as smooth or as charming as Cruisie's earlier work. The writing is filled with pointless detail, the banter isn't as fun as it should be, and it takes nearly half the book for something interesting to happen. I'm not sorry I read it—because they do put a crew together and there is a heist—but I could have bailed out early on and wouldn't have missed much. Also, while there is romance, this isn't a Romance as the ending is hand-wavy in a way that doesn't fit the genre, but even without the expectation of a happily ever after, I found it annoyingly vague about the logistics of the relationship.

Contains: death of a family member, though not much grief; brief mention of infertility; starts off extremely heterosexual but eventually throws in two queers; non-explicit m/f sex.

Entry tags:

poetry,
recs:poetry

National Poetry Month 2025 day 23: Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins

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gender

Relevant, interests

"You Wouldn't Steal A Gender" and "I Would Definitely Steal A Gender" badges, in exactly the font you'd expect.

Entry tags:

culture consumed

Things

Books
Very little progress.

Crafts
Dyed a 36x45cm piece of white 14 count aida cloth purple, for Secret Reasons. And now I know that I can get a reasonable result doing that with a large storage box and hot water, winging the quantity of Rit dye. Shenanigans may result.

Food
My parents' Christmas present to me, a new frying pan, just made it to me today. I haven't test-driven it yet, but it looks nice. And like it should heat up easier than the cast iron one my stove can't really handle, much as I love it.

Weather
Finally cooling down. Good.

Other
One of the Discord servers I'm in had a PowerPoint night. I didn't present, but I contributed a very unserious set of slides for someone else to present sight unseen. This was a heap of fun, and I recommend this form of grownup show and tell to other nerds. I am already working on my next such document.

In a different Discord, a discussion of linguistics prompted me to make a series of noises which in turn made Dorian give me a very funny look. If you would like to provoke yourself to make a series of noises that will make your cats give you funny looks, here is the chart.

Entry tags:

sparkle motion

Daydream

What if, when you went to a nonprofit/charity/etc website because you want to donate money to them, you could add ?nomarketing on the end of the link, and it would bring up a barebones version of their donation page that would JUST LET YOU MAKE A SINGLE DONATION.

It would not sign you up to their newsletter.
It would not give them permission to contact you.
It would not ask you to share their link on social media.
It would not ask you how you found them.
It would not show you a thank you letter written in the first person by a composite version of one of their clients.
It would not show you tragic and distressing photographs or descriptions of the horrible things happening to the people you HAVE ALREADY DECIDED TO GIVE MONEY TO HELP.
There would not be any animated banners or carousels.
There would be no popups.
Required fields on the form would only be information they genuinely cannot accept your money without, and they would have checked both the law on what information they actually need and their assumptions about names and titles (e.g. not everyone has a first name, not everyone has a last name, not everyone's name is short, some names have spaces or apostrophes or hyphens, not everyone belongs to one of the four genders Mr, Mrs, Miss, and Dr.)
It would not give you a menu with three choices: make your one-off donation a monthly amount, make your one-off donation a monthly amount but more money, or (deselected and in a duller colour) "keep your one-off donation" before letting you donate.
Or after you donate.
Or both.

I understand they have a job to do, but do they understand how aversive this experience is? It is the biggest thing about charitable giving that I dread, when I have enough to give. "Hi, I'd like to give you some mon-" "CAN YOU GIVE US MORE? CAN YOU GIVE IT EVERY MONTH? KIDS ARE DYING, VASS, ANIMALS ARE DYING, THE PLANET IS DYING, MOREMOREMOREMORE CAN WE TEXT YOU, CAN WE CALL YOU UP AND TELL YOU ABOUT THE DYING KIDS CAN YOU TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO GIVE US MONEY TOO-"

If they made it less stressful, I would not have to psych myself up to do this. And by definition this is how they are treating people who already want to help them.

Entry tags:

UK: compilation of upcoming trans rights protests

https://whatthetrans.com/compilation-of-protests-against-the-supreme-court/

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live well - it is the greatest revenge

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Daily Happiness

1. I had another work from home day. I'm about halfway caught up with my email and fully caught up with teams. Tomorrow I've got a couple meetings, so I've got to go in to the office, but I might work from home again on Thursday to finally catch up on everything.

2. When Carla was out today she stopped at Uncle Tetsu's, a Japanese cheesecake chain. They have a sakura cheesecake right now and we had some after dinner tonight and it was sooooooo good. I normally prefer New York style cheesecake to the Japanese fluffier style, but this was really good consistency and the sakura flavor was amazing.

3. I finished playing The Plucky Squire. Overall it's a pretty fun game, but it is not just a straight action adventure game. There are a bunch of (frankly not that fun) mini games for the boss fights and stuff where you have to play other styles of games and that is not what I signed up for. Like for one character's boss battles you play a Mike Tyson style boxing game, for another it's a rhythm game, and for the third it's a Puzzle Bobble type. Then there are some stealth sequences where you have to sneak past enemies who can kill you instantly if they sense you, and if they sense you there is no way to run to escape, even if you're close to a place you could get away. You're just instantly dead. And the final battle is a space shooter type. The good thing is that if you die in a boss battle you can sometimes restart partway through, not all the way at the beginning, and the stealth sequences have multiple checkpoints and you'll respawn there rather than back at the beginning. But I would still have preferred not to have that "variety" in my action adventure game. Still is a fun game, though. But if you suck at those types of games it might ruin it for you.

4. I finished editing all my Disney Japan pics, so hopefully I can get the last day's posts written up later this week.

5. Jasper is just so handsome.

Entry tags:

disney,
japan 2025

2025 Disneyland Trip #23 (4/5/25) Tokyo DisneySea (Part 2)

When I last left off, we had just checked out the big gift shop at the Fantasy Springs hotel and were exploring the land while waiting for our return time for the Peter Pan ride.

( More DisneySea adventures! )

Entry tags:

purrcy,
spring

Purrcy, bees

#Purrcy was both happy and regal, sitting in my seat on the sofa with the sun coming the skylight on it. See how he smiles at me in Cat!
#cats #CatsOfBluesky

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is lightly curled on a brocade cushion, looking at the camera with ears alert, whiskers spread wide and white, eyes light green and pupils just slits. He is clearly very happy, as sunlight shines on the cushion and most of him.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is lightly curled on a brocade cushion, looking at the camera with ears alert, whiskers spread wide and white, eyes light green and pupils just slits. He is clearly very happy, as sunlight shines on the cushion and most of him.

I sat out on the porch to eat breakfast today, and the local hive of feral honeybees was awake, buzzing about looking for nectar. The crabapple flowers are opening, so they seem to have their timing just right. The carpenter bees were also out, inspecting the eaves. It was really good to have that 1/2 hour, even though it was so late in the morning (I had errands to run before my stomach was ready for breakfast) that I didn't see or hear any migrants.

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

Entry tags:

in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha

Today's poem:

I Have News for You

There are people who do not see a broken playground swing
as a symbol of ruined childhood

and there are people who don't interpret the behavior
of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.

There are people who don't walk past an empty swimming pool
and think about past pleasures unrecoverable

and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians.
I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings

do not send their sinuous feeder roots
deep into the potting soil of others' emotional lives

as if they were greedy six-year-olds
sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;

and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without
debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.

Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon?
There are some people, unlike me and you,

who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as
unattainable as that moon;
thus, they do not later
have to waste more time
defaming the object of their former ardor.

Or consequently run and crucify themselves
in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.

I have news for you—
there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room

and open a window to let the sweet breeze in
and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.

--Tony Hoagland

*

Entry tags:

poetry,
recs:poetry

Poetry Month 2025 day 22: A Bonus by Elizabeth Smart

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Entry tags:

family,
job hunting

(no subject)

Well, it's been 2 weeks since my last post, so here's an update.

( mentions of health issues )

*

In job news, something pretty huge and happy-making has happened???

One of the 4 companies I interviewed with has gotten back to me (after like 7 stages) to say they want me to work for them and they'll send me a contract offer in the next few days (which is standard). Fingers crossed, nothing certain until papers are signed etc, but. BUT.

It's been over a year, and finally I have a job offer.

At least one company wants to pay me a decent salary with all the nice perks and everything.

Now, if I had no other offers and was not in the running for any other position, I would take this one IN A HEARTBEAT. I would take it and be SO GRATEFUL.

But since I am still somehow in the process with 3 other companies, I'm in the weird position of mentally wondering which one I'd choose if they were to make me an offer.

Company #2 - I've finished all the interviews, and they're supposed to get back to me tomorrow on whether they want to check my references, which usually takes 1-2 days and is more of a formality. There's good reason to assume that if they say yes to me tomorrow they'll make me an offer next week.

Company #3 - I'm doing my final interview with them on Thursday, a big presentation, and after that they'll let me know if they're interested, no reference checks. If they want me they'll just make an offer.

Company #4 - the actual company of my heart, that all other considerations aside I would probably choose to work for because I love their product so much - I'm doing my final interview with them on Monday (next week). Of course they have the WORST HR process, so I actually have no idea what their next step is and whether there's something else they'll want to do before deciding yay/nay after Monday.

Now I'm mostly stressed because Company #1, that's already told me they want me, will probably try to pressure me to finalize a contract with them before Company #4 has a chance to decide whether they want me, sigh.

All of these potential roles are so good. None of them are "I can live with that" compromises. All of them are amazing, it's more a question of specific types of amazing, and of course I ideally want the combination that works best for me.

It is utterly surreal to be in this position after a year and 2 months of being unemployed. UTTERLY SURREAL.

But you know, maybe all the other companies will reject me and only Company #1 will remain, which will still be perfectly fine and even great.

Or maybe I somehow manage to fuck up this whole thing and will be left with nothing ////o\\\\ IDK it's just too good to be true at the moment.

Phew. Deep breath. The next 2 weeks will be continued stress, especially since I have a big presentation on Thursday and on Monday, but then... then. I don't know. Maybe, just maybe. *fingers crossed*

Entry tags:

If anyone could use a morale boost

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/04/protests-erupt-across-the-uk-after-supreme-court-ruled-against-trans-rights/

Many many pictures.

Also, more protests yet to come, apparently, with ones scheduled for Oxford and Cambridge.

Entry tags:

Daughter-in-law bristles when asked for flight info

Dear Carolyn: When I asked my daughter-in-law about their vacation destination and flight information, she asked why I wanted to know. I said if there was a crash, I would want to know that it wasn’t their flight. She asked why I was wishing their plane to crash. She also said this type of question takes away her agency.

Sharing flight information is common among my mom friends, so I was surprised. She suggested therapy to handle my anxiety.

I am now feeling very unsure about how to relate to her. She seems to make up a version of me that isn’t accurate and then respond as if that was who I am. I want to avoid conflict with her because this relationship is important to my son. How to proceed?

( Easiest: Stop asking for flight info )

Entry tags:

weekly update

Me-and-media update

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: 44

View Respondents

Do you have face-blindness?

View Answers

yes
2 (4.5%)

technically no, but it's not unusual for me to get people confused
23 (52.3%)

especially when they're dressed the same
14 (31.8%)

no
12 (27.3%)

I mix up similar usernames
14 (31.8%)

honestly, they don't have to be that similar
12 (27.3%)

other
2 (4.5%)

ticky-box full of black cats slinking mysteriously in the shadows
28 (63.6%)

ticky-box full of starting a howl
15 (34.1%)

ticky-box of overthinking
21 (47.7%)

ticky-box full of squirrel-dragons with floofy tails, guarding their golden acorns
21 (47.7%)

ticky-box full of hugs
33 (75.0%)

Entry tags:

I am Spartacus

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Daily Happiness

1. I worked from home today, getting a fair amount of catching up done. Unfortunately I forgot that I also had to double check all my stores' budgets for next month today so that did take some time away from the email and teams catch-up, but I should be able to focus more on that tomorrow. (Probably will mostly work from home tomorrow, too.)

2. We bought a sweater for Alexander for his birthday and even though his birthday is not until next week, gave it to him yesterday so he could try it on and see if it fit, and it was a little big so we said we'd be happy to go exchange it. I was just thinking to exchange it whenever we next go, but there was availability today and Carla felt like going to Disneyland, so while I had to stay home and focus on my email backlog, she went and exchanged the sweater and had a nice morning at DCA. She managed to find all the rest of the hidden easter eggs there (eventually with some help from an online guide) and took pictures, but I'm just going to include those with our next trip post rather than make a separate one. They had Lightning McQueen and Mater ones which are super cute, though.

3. We bought a stereo for the garage and it arrived today. As all modern stereos do these days, it also has bluetooth capability to connect to your phone, but she mainly wanted it for playing actual CDs. Her current CD rack is overflowing, so we need to get another and then move the CDs out to the garage so she can have them out there with the stereo. Nice thing is, unless you're standing right by the door or window, even with it turned up pretty loud you really can't hear much from outside. Amazing what insulation can do!

4. I love the look on Ollie's face here, but he was even cuter before I turned on the light and came in. It wasn't dark but was dim enough that he was really well camouflaged in the box!

Entry tags:

links,
politics

US politics

( One link behind the cut )

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Forgetting my sweater has made me much wetter

Entry tags:

poetry: limerick

Limericks!

I have recently written limericks in: due South, Interview with the Vampire (TV), Murderbot, Star Wars Original & Prequel Trilogies, and Venom (Movies). Go here for the links and summaries, in alphabetical order by fandom.

I would be happy to write more, so if reading my limericks makes you want more of them, prompt at will.