jenett | Reading

I've returned from a week away in Amsterdam, which I visited with my mum. The two of us were last there together in the winter of 2005 (although I've been back since, mainly to change trains en route to Matthias's family in Germany), and it was great to revisit the same places in the sunshine — and discover the city, much changed.

I kept a haphazard paper journal throughout the week, and will transcribe it behind the cut.

( Canals like the veins of a city )

I've put up two photosets over at

ronnidolorosa: a general Amsterdam batch, and a collection of cats.

The less said about the chaotic journey home the better (suffice it to say that I made it onto my Eurostar train in Brussels with twenty minutes to spare), but I returned to a fully stocked fridge (so many strawberries and tomatoes!), a bottle of pink sparkling wine, and an incredibly lush garden.

I'm only peripherally engaged with the men's World Cup, but I accidentally stumbled into a very Balkans corner of Instagram, and discovered the absolute banger that is the Bosnian team anthem (a thirteen-year-old song about the bittersweet experience of being an immigrant, reworked by the surprised and ecstatic fans into an anthem for their team). It's so catchy, and the video is gold!

Watch on YouTube

Now to catch up with ten days' worth of Dreamwidth!

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sorcyress

It is a well known fact at Pinewoods that there is exactly one shower in all of camp, so here I am, sitting and writing some of my words while waiting for it to become available unto me.

(This is extra funny, because waiting for it necessitates being directly across from the open empty room with another shower. In a building that has at least two more showers beyond that, none of which are currently occupied. But no, the outdoor shower is the single and only shower and I will not be hearing any arguments to the contrary.)

Anyways, I am having a _wonderful_ time at Lavender spring camp. Here are some things from today!

*Ben Sachs-Hamilton hosted a callers confab, which was a completely unplanned/unstructured session devoted to "hey, uh.........let's chat about stuff!" and it was a really interesting glimpse into the How Contra Callers Do Things situation. I was able to say some hopefully useful things and learn a lot of hopefully useful things, and it was a nice situation!

*Lindsay Dono, who I deeply adore, stopped me very briefly to be all "hey, I'd love to pick your brain sometime about how I can work on getting the Seattle SCD scene ganderfree" which OH GODS YES PLEASE ME TOO! So we didn't actually have that conversation yet, but I'm so very excited to do it later.

*At the very end of the evening, after last waltz and people are packing up and the like, a couple of the young spry gremlin-like creatures at camp suddenly went full goofy beast mode, scrobbling around on the floor in a squat and bounding forward on their hands. There were two of them, and some wry lad shouted "do a reel" to which they replied "we can't with only two". Which meant inevitably there were suddenly six of us. Four of us, me included, did manage a really quite fantastically weird reel, kinda leapfrogging around our partners, and then we had to do Quite A Lot Of Balance And Petronella as well, which was _extremely_ satisfying because we got a good rhythm and quite literally, "everyone clapped" to keep time for us. Really fun and stupid and goofy.

I am so _so_ thrilled for a body that I somehow do manage to take enough care of that I can do absolute nonsense bullshit like that sometimes, on very little notice.

*Everyone is unbelievably attractive, and that's great in and of itself, but it's also extremely charming to have moments where I am hanging out with one attractive person, and we are both very wistfully commisserating as we look from the porch to the suddenly-at-eye-level extremely short white tennis skirt being worn by another attractive person.

*The music is making me gay? Like, by which I mean, I have an emotion in my chest that I've long since identified as "I am attracted to this person in a gay way" and I have received that feeling multiple times in response to the music. Which is _fucking fantastic_ honestly, I would be very very happy to continue to be queer for music for a long long time.

*SAW A LUNA MOTH! Best part was one person pointing it out and a whole bunch of us scrambling over to also see it! It was _so_ large and _so_ beautiful! I don't think I've ever seen one at camp before? Maybe just once, but years ago and high up in the rafters of Hands Across and not going anywhere, this one was fluttering marvelously around Ampleforth.

*Also saw a dragonfly this afternoon that landed on my shorts in a very photogenic way, and as I was photographing it, I noticed it had something sightly weird going on, which I eventually determined was the damselfly it was in the process of eating! That was VERY COOL TO WATCH and I got a lot of photos of it with various amounts of blue darner sticking out of its mouth.

*I have been talking so much about Scottish Dancing, and it has been with SO MUCH MORE LOVE than I norally feel like I get to talk about SCD with non SCDers, and I'm sososososoososos happy about that! I've also been putting some conversational thought into "what is the difference between SCD and contra/ECD, and that's been _really_ fun to puzzle through and work out the many differences that actually mean anything!

*I am going to run an SCD class tomorrow and I really hope it goes well to Do Hard Things Badly, and also I hope I have chosen some good hard things, but also I was looking through my collection of dances and had SO MANY OPTIONS! Some of them are much more accessible than others, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what I can get away with!

I looked unbeleivably good for the costume dance tonight, wearing clothing that I have all gotten in the relatively recent past. I own so much Good Clothing and I really enjoy getting to peacock it up!

*The mustard tempe tonight for dinner was so fucking good, damn

*I have gotten to meet a new friend! He doesn't necessarily realize we're friends yet, and to be fair, we do not have to be friends, but I hope we will. He is FOUR MONTHS OLD and his parents love him so much and also love each other so much and watching all this community be all starry-eyed at each other is really fucking wonderful!

*Now the shower is open so I'm gonna do that! Then maybe I walk to the camphouse party past the wifi shed to see if I need to write any more, or can just post these. I really fucking love LCFD, which I have been informed stands for "Lets Contra Fucking Dance"!

*Finished showering and now my hair is clllllleeeeeean which I am extremely excited about (I love the Pinewoods shampoo/conditioner/water situation very much --in 2023 I washed my hair at camp for the first time (normally I wash it just before camp) and realized How Good It Was For My Hair and now it's my *favourite*!)

*Speaking of good hair, a friend of mine is going through a really tough time, and I was hearing about some of it while braiding my hair this morning. So then I offered to braid their hair, as a social friendliness thing, and they were all "actually, it really needs buzzing on the sides" and immediately I was like "I ALSO DO THAT FOR PEOPLE I DO IT REAL GOOD" and I got to have the amazingly queer experience of being at queer camp and touching up a beloved friend's badly grown-out undercut to look fresh and fuzzy and new just like, out on the camphouse back porch and that felt Very Gay And Good. Great times!

Now I'm at the wifi shed. Let's check word count...

Yep, 1149. Let's party!

~Sor
MOOP!

conuly

Either the Knicks won or… I can’t actually imagine an or for this sentence.

Go Knicks!

cornerofmadness

okay I am a little.

1. overly sensitive to cold milk: I highly doubt that there is more milk in an iced latte than a hot so I'm thinking heating the milk changes the sugar enough that I can tolerate it. I'm noticing iced lattes nauseate me far more than hot ones. Yes I'm taking my lactaid. No I don't want plant milk. I don't care for almond milk (or the unsustainable farming of them), oatmilk is so fatty it triggers my gall bladder issues and soy milk is an estrogen mimic and my cancer is estrogen sensitive (there isn't good data about whether this would be a real issue but it IS enough to help menopause symptoms)

2. Overly sensitive to heat. By the time I hit the library and Kroger I was so overheated (plus that iced latte) that I was far too nauseated to go to the little pride festival going on. Sigh

3. Overly sensitive to toxic male bullshit: So I sailed past Autozone on my way to the coffee shop this morning and I wanted that fix a flat. (my tire pressure is still up) No problem because there is advanced autos on the way home (literally there are three auto parts stores, two side by side (one built out of divorce revenge) and one across the street). I go in, can't find the fix a flat with the tire stuff and get in line to ask. the three people are busy. One guy gets finished. He looks at me, makes a face, turns his back and waits on a guy who had just come in.

Well fuck you too. Sorry there's a woman in the auto parts store. I walk out and go across the street to Autozone. Fix a flat is right where it's supposed to be and I'm out of there in 2 minutes.

Unfortunately I've been rather unwell all day so I did not get much done today not as much as I wanted BUT I was dealing with my ridiculous coffee table. Can anyone tell me why a prayer card from my grandmother's funeral in 1997 is on it? Can anyone tell me why THREE copies of my birth certificate are lying there in an envelope. Because I have no fucking clue. Also I need to get a little fire safe for some of these things just in case. But seriously why was that stuff there? Last I seen either they had been in my jewelry box in my bedroom. I am baffled because I have no idea why they'd be in the living room on the coffee table. I know I have the birth certificate because of my passport (which I need to check the date on. It might be time to renew that) but I did that years ago so why? Do I sleep walk and do shit in my sleep? Sometimes I swear. (also slept like crap)

Rocket now prefers the neighbors to me. Good. They're going to watch him all summer for me.

And hey look I can do a science saturday again. It's been a bit.

Scientists discover 5 million-year-old whale graveyard stretching for hundreds of miles in the Indian Ocean

2 long-vanished 'super Earths' once orbited near Neptune in our outer solar system, new study hints

2,000 years ago in Scotland, people removed a corpse's brain and fashioned the arm bones into tools

Complete skin of an adult horse found with 10th-century woman and newborn in rare Siberian burial

Genetically modified worms can now produce and deliver drugs inside a living body, scientists say

'Geminid Symphony' and 'Galactic Gandalf': See the breathtaking views of our home galaxy from the 2026 Milky Way Photographer of the Year contest

How eliminating sugar may alter the gut microbiome: mouse study It's not good. You know once I get my DexCom situation fixed, I want to see what happens if I do use table sugar for my tea instead of a substitute as that's about the only place I use sugar for.

Does the Mediterranean diet hold the key to longevity?

Vitamin C may help preserve brain gray matter volume as we age

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: Midsomer Murder

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hannah

Tonight's Escapade panel suggestion hangout had me making people laugh, so it was the high point of the day, easily. Moreso even than my brother J., his daughter A., and his wife E. coming over for lunch - a rare Manhattan visit on E.'s part, but my parents thought more of it than I did, so not my day's high point.

Also not a high point but a good one was taking the night to write for a challenge, and letting myself be surprised by the story. I took a prompt without knowing what I'd do with it, then let the story tell me how to take me where I wanted to go. I always enjoy it when that happens.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: nothing now

watersword

A friend gave me her old aircon, I lugged it up three flights and got it set up, and ...it turns on and does nothing. I'll take the filter out and clean it tomorrow (UGH) but if that doesn't work, I am out of ideas. (Yes, I looked for the manual online. The troubleshooting tips are not helpful.)

Semi-relatedly, I still need to sort out repairing the oven and the dishwasher, which are both, separately, fucked up. Physical reality is the worst.

senmut

I don't want "misunderstood villains" or "trying for redemption". Tell me a villain that is THE VILLAIN, they did do all that, and you absolutely hope the heroes get the upper hand every time!

The first one that defined this concept for me? J. R. Ewing of Dallas. When I compare Babylon 5's Bester to him, I mean it as a solid compliment. I don't want tragic stories pasted on, other characters 'fixing' them, or any of that. I want them to be as bad and as nasty as they do so well... and I will cheer any and every person that gets the upper hand on them.

Because, my lovely friends, heroes ARE measured by what they overcome, and that includes the antagonist.

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rl: meme

sovay

I can't remember if it ever occurred to me before last night's re-read of Jane Yolen's Neptune Rising: Songs and Tales of the Undersea Folk (1982) that her Greyling (1968) resembles Gordon Bok's "Peter Kagan and the Wind" (1971) in that both are stories of selkies who return to their seal-selves not despite the bonds of human love but because of them—a father in one case, a husband in the other, both fishermen in peril on the sea. Bok and Yolen knew one another; she partly dedicated the collection to him. It's slightly nuts to me that he never set either of her sea-songs published in it, since it takes so little imagination to hear "The Ballad of the White Seal Maid" or "The Selchie's Midnight Song" in his deep-grained swell of a voice. I don't know whose version coalesced first. I grew up on both of them.

Via

regshoe, a book meme.

General Questions

This week I'm reading: I am currently in the middle of Naomi Mitchison's To the Chapel Perilous (1955), the paperback reprint sent me by

boxofdelights in 2022 as a replacement for my long-lost, lent-out college copy. Also re-reading Yolen's Merlin's Booke (1986), the Ace first edition inherited from my god-aunt in 2000 which I had not then read since my childhood in the Cambridge Public Library. For the first time, Jonas Kreppel's Adventures of Max Spitzkopf: The Yiddish Sherlock Holmes (trans. Mikhl Yashinsky, 1908/2025), a present from my parents earlier this year. With snail-mortifying slowness, I am continuing to poke at the modern Greek of Nikos Kavvadias' Πούσι (1947).

My favourite book of all time is: Impossible to answer. I did that hundred books meme last spring and kept having to append titles that had slipped my mind.

My current favourite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months): With apologies to Molly Crabapple and Seamus Heaney, almost certainly Leon Garfield's The Stolen Watch (1988).

The last book I bought was: Joan Coggins' Dancing with Death (1947), a present for my mother which she promptly loaned back to me so that she could discuss it. The last book I bought for myself was Andrew Hiller's Hornytown Chutzpah (2026), brought to my attention by

mrissa.

The first book I bought with my own money: No clue. My first real job was in a science fiction and fantasy bookstore when I was fifteen and they might as well have paid me off the shelves.

The first book I received as a gift: Equally impossible to estimate. I can remember receiving Brophy's The Prince and the Wild Geese (1983) early on, but it would not have been the first.

The last book I received as a gift was: Molly Crabapple's Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund (2026), courtesy of

a_reasonable_man.

The last book I borrowed from the library: Either Kevin Lynch's The Image of the City (1960) or What Time Is This Place? (1972), whichever was not checked out first.

The book physically closest to me right now: Robinson Jeffers' Such Counsels You Gave to Me (1937), the burgundy-boarded, jacketless first edition from my grandparents' house. After that, Imogen Sara Smith's Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy (2008), which I gave some years ago to

spatch.

Do you read bookfic, and if so what is your favourite bookshop fic? I don't think I have ever read a bookshop fic. I read Satoshi Yagisawa's Days at the Morisaki Bookshop (trans. Eric Ozawa, 2010/2023) when

spatch gave it to me for our last anniversary.

This or That

Physical book or e-book: Physical book if at all possible, since I process them differently. E-book in the inevitable event that I can't get hold of something and there's one copy digitized maddeningly on the Internet Archive.

Used or new: As a reading experience, I don't think it makes much difference to me. If I own a book, I try to keep it in good shape.

Fiction or non-fiction: At the moment I seem to be reading more fiction than nonfiction, which may or may not be the case in another three months.

Read at a coffee shop or at the park: I haven't been inside a coffee shop in years. Last Friday I was reading on the stone wall overlooking the water at Spy Pond Park while waiting for

ladymondegreen.

Paperback or hardcover: In terms of preferred reading format? I don't think it makes much difference to me, either.

Romance or Crime: More crime than romance.

Yes or No

Stream of consciousness? Yes.

Poetry? Yes.

Memoirs? Yes.

Philosophy? Yes.

Thrillers? Yes.

Chronicles? What?

Dialogue heavy? Alan Garner?

Current Music: Gordon Bok, "Peter Kagan and the Wind"

cosmolinguist

Tomorrow we're meeting a dog we night dogsit while her human is away in a couple weeks.

It's someone from queer club whose dogsitter fell through at the last minute. Xena the dog is a yorkie/jack russell/Brussels griffon mix, so a shaggy adorable little dog and we're assured she's cuddly and easy to look after.

I'm excited to meet her.

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random encounters

muccamukk

Re a conversation I'm having in comments with

trepkos.

I think I've mentioned before that growing up without TV reception, I really only saw shows when I was visiting Grandma or one of my cousins, and therefore my knowledge of Star Trek was largely based on the novels, and the very rare episode I caught while in town, or that someone had on VHS (mostly TNG, which was airing at the time).

I relied on the secondhand knowledge provided by the novels, which would refer back to canon events in an entirely muddled way that made it difficult to know what had happened. I was therefore delighted to discover that James Blish had written narrative versions of all the Original Series episodes.

"Great!" I thought, "Now I can get all the details straight, and understand the references in the novels."

I forget how I figured it out, maybe one of the novels contradicted the Blish versions, or maybe it was in one of the other reference books (we had, at one point, the nitpicker's guides and the encyclopedia). But I worked out that Blish was not only changing details, but sometimes changing the entire endings of episodes! Shock! Betrayal! Horror! Imagine the most outraged 9-10 year old you've ever seen!

(In retrospect, I'm wondering if Blish was writing them from memory? Or possibly shooting scripts? Does anyone know? Knowledge of this must exist.)

However, I was actually kind of disappointed when I finally saw "Amok Time," because I low-key liked some of Blish's made-up details? Well, not most of them, but there's a beat in the ending that I fully imprinted on, and that isn't in the original episode. And I know this is blasphemy, because the original ending is fully iconic, with Spock smiling and almost hugging Kirk before he remembers he's not supposed to have feelings. However, hear me out. I went and found the Blish version on Archive.org (they're all there, if you want to delight in corny 1970s renderings of 1960s camp), and it goes thusly:

[Kirk] came gradually back to consciousness in the Sickbay.* McCoy was bending over him. Nearby was Spock, his hands over his face. His shoulders were shaking.

Nurse Christine† came into his field of view, and turning Spock towards the Captain, gently pulled his hands away from his face. Kirk smiled weakly, and spoke in a faint but cheerful voice.

"Mr. Spock—I never thought I'd see the day..."

"Captain!" Spock stared down at him, absolutely dazed with astonishment.‡ Then, obviously realizing what his face and voice were revealing, he looked away.

I know it's not a masterpiece of literary genius,‡ but it does hit the niche trope of "emotionally more open character comes upon emotionally closed character secretly having a good cry, and that leads to ~~banging~~ revelations of true feelings." Which I could read a hundred thousand versions of and never tire of wanting more, and I have indeed included in at least a couple of my own fic. I'm not sure if this is the first time I ran into it, but it might have been? If so, Thank you, Mr. Blish!

Anyway, hi. I'm actually doing reading for history. Of 12th-century nuns, not mid-20th-century pop culture.

* Definite article in the original?

† Nurse Does Not Have a Last Name!?

‡ Look. The thing about being nine is you don't notice when the prose is Not Very Good.

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fandom: star trek

mftfmod posting in

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ysabetwordsmith

The Angera Declaration for Methane Action

Methane is the second most significant contributor to warming, after carbon dioxide. Methane is responsible for 30% of current warming and its atmospheric concentration continues to rise. Absent rapid and sustained reductions, methane emissions will drive faster warming in the coming decades, intensifying climate risks such as more frequent and severe droughts and heatwaves; more rapid ice-sheet loss; sea-level rise; and risks of triggering destabilizing climate tipping points.

Reducing methane emissions not only reduces climate risks, it also almost immediately improves air quality by decreasing ground-level ozone, which improves public health by reducing respiratory illness and premature mortality while preventing crop losses from ozone exposure thus strengthening food security.

Because methane is so powerful a warming agent and so short-lived in the atmosphere, its reduction offers the biggest bang-for-buck on climate action. The vast majority of that action relies on government and industry efforts, but there are a few things that individuals can do with real impact...

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

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muccamukk

Since apparently we're never going to find out what happened, and I'm not mad about that! /s

Does anyone have a rec for Gatwa!Doctor/Rogue fixit fic? Like a long h/c one with travails and shit.

I'd take other Doctors, too, but mostly want more Gatwa.

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fandom: doctor who

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy, breezy, and mild. It's supposed to rain soon.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 6/13/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 6/13/26 -- I pulled weeds to reach the obelisk that was between the apricot tree and birdgift tree, then moved the obelisk near the new picnic table garden.

I also raked up a patch of clinging weeds to minimize their seed dispersal.

EDIT 6/13/26 -- My partner Doug was going to mow, but now it's raining. :/

EDIT 6/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 6/13/26 -- The brief sprinkle of rain proved to be a cocktease. We got the mower going and my partner is out mowing now. \o/

EDIT 6/13/26 -- Mowing is done. Yay! Much more of the house yard is cleared along with a few other bits. I have access to more places I can work. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much grass has actually sprouted along the path to the east edge of the yard, which I thought hadn't come up at all.

I also planted out the last couple of water jug pots that had flowers in them. I still need to dump out the failed ones though.

Elderberry bushes are blooming way back in the orchard but I can't get to those through the tall field weeds.

EDIT 6/13/26 -- I dumped out the last of the water jugs.

I've seen a male and a female cardinal separately.

EDIT 6/13/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 6/13/26 -- I trimmed around the contorta willow bed.

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

Current Mood: busy

Tags:

kiya

Slick, aka Facecat, aka Licky Slicky, aka Editorial Assistant Cat, aka My Obnoxious Freaky Boy, aka The Creature, collapsed suddenly yesterday afternoon with what appeared to be catastrophic asthmatic pneumonia. (He has had the not-uncommon chronic feline sniffle for some time.) He was a good boy and came to his humans when he noticed things were badly wrong, and we got him to the hospital, but he declined abruptly around 3am. I got the kids up so we could troop over to the hospital to say goodbye. The younger two remained in the ICU while we eased the inevitable.

Slick is survived by his full sister Lilybelle and his adopted brother and sparring partner, Robin, as well as his shellshocked human family.

He was a good boy. Every time I talked to the vets, they said what a good boy he was. He loved getting up in my business and poking me in the face. He didn't know how to sit on laps so he would stand on people and rearrange frequently. Sometimes he would sort of crouch on my lap so that he could lick my fingers while I was typing and try to chew on my knuckles. He got on top of all kinds of furniture. When we were away for a week the catsitter called partway through in a panic saying he hadn't been seen, and we found him chilling on top of some shelving in the basement storage all "What? You know I don't like strangers." He had finally started chilling out and letting people who don't live here see and even pet him. He loved halves of plastic Easter eggs and would sing about them and play cat hockey with him. He was the best cat at understanding English. I could tell him "Timmy is not in the well" and he would stop yelling at me. He sounded, as KJ would say, like a squeaky door hinge. He used to spend a lot of time in the basement ceiling, and it's possible that old insulation up there is why he was asthmatic. The other cats would beg for protein scraps when people were making dinner (well, Robin begged; Lil would steal whatever Robin got) but his response to such things was, "What do you think I am, an animal?" Sometimes he did an adequate job of pretending to have a dignity, even though it was a lie. His belly was not a trap; he denied all existence of bellies. He had a white Superman-shield shaped shirtfront and two white stripes on his front right toe.

He was a good boy.

Current Mood: devastated

Tags:

cats,
family

umadoshi

Before even more time passes, I want to tell you all that last weekend it was our Jinksy!bear (and Claudia!kitten)'s thirteenth birthday. I'm managing not to let my brain actually crunch the numbers to figure out exactly when in the coming year he'll (please, God) cross the line of "has now lived half of his life without her".

He's unmistakably showing his age, although he doesn't yet seem old. I can never shake the fact that when I was a kid, thirteen would have seemed OLD for a cat; it always seemed to be such a marvel when a cat lived well into their teens. (One of my childhood cats, Jenny, lived until after

scruloose and I moved home from Toronto! She made it to nineteen, which is still a fairly impressive age now.)

I will forever wish we'd had the chance to see what kind of little old lady cat Claud would have been, and forever be grateful for how long we've had Jinksy. He continues to be just ridiculously sweet. We are so lucky to have him and the blues.

Today wasn't

scruloose's first market visit of the year, but it was mine. They went to pick up a meat order at one of the year-around main ones last week, and that errand meant that we didn't go to the little in-walking-distance market when it had its first day of the season last Saturday. But today we made it out, and since there wasn't much of a crowd--presumably due to the steady, if not heavy, rain passing through this morning--there were still plenty of strawberries available when we got there. (I wasn't surprised that things were quiet with the weather, and obviously financial pressures are hitting so many people brutally hard, but it was still quieter than I expected, esp. given that it was the first of the strawberries.)

First market haul of the year: strawberries (two quarts), salad greens, a sweet potato, eggs, a small dense sourdough loaf, kimchi, and kimbap (the sort that look exactly like onigiri--triangular and fully wrapped in nori, rather than rolled).

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muccamukk

So it turns out the reward for having submitted a research paper in a (more or less) timely fashion is having to turn around and work on the next paper. So I'm def not procrastinating from that! Look! There's a nun!

I had an open tab with the outlines for book reviews for like a month, then finally managed to overwrite the saved draft with something else. Which is no loss as it was just the titles and a preamble about how far behind I am. I hope that once school is out after the 22nd, I'll be able to catch up with the handful of books I read in the last six months!

Anyway! Fun meme from

regshoe:

General Questions

This week I'm reading: Just finished The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar, and currently rereading The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older.
My favourite book of all time is: Oh jeez. Prooooobably The Lord of the Rings? It's certainly the book that's meant the most to me, but I admit that I've listened to the BBC radio play from the 1980s more than I've read it in recent years. I keep thinking that I should reread, then not getting around to it.
My current favourite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months): Persuasion by Jane Austen, hands down.
The last book I bought was: Companions on the Road by Tanith Lee, which I haven't read yet.
The first book I bought with my own money: Too long ago to remember. Probably a used Star Trek novel?
The first book I received as a gift: My brother and I used to get a lot of those slim hardcover Eyewitness science books, so that seems likely. Or a used Star Trek novel.
The last book I received as a gift was: It's bad that I'm fully blanking on this. People don't give me many books, because I gave so many away last time I moved, and I may move again soon.
The last book I borrowed from the library: The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit.
The book physically closest to me right now: Pageboy by Elliot Page, which Nenya has been not reading for about six months now.
Do you read bookfic, and if so what is your favourite bookshop fic? I assume we're not counting fandoms with canonical bookstores, such as GO? In the case of AUs, I can't think of one (and don't seem to have one bookmarked), but I don't object to them in theory. I did want to write a Band of Brothers AU where Dick starts a queer bookstore post war. I do read fic about book fandoms though, and hope to look at my TBR tab once school's over.

This or That

(watch me be bad at binary choices)
Physical book or e-book: E-book. So portable!
Used or new: Used. The shops are more fun.
Fiction or non-fiction: Both.
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Park!
Paperback or hardcover: Paperback, but only the mass market/pocket book style, not clunky trade paperbacks.
Romance or Crime: Romance! (but it can have crime in it, if it wants)

Yes or No

(see above)
Stream of consciousness? Only by Laurence Sterne.
Poetry? Yes.
Memoirs? Yes.
Philosophy? Only theology.
Thrillers? No.
Chronicles? Like... travel books? The chronicles of Narnia? No to the former, yes to the latter.
Dialogue heavy? Usually not.

Code:

Current Mood: recumbent
Current Music: "Ta fête" by Stromae

vulturegore posting in

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Name: Frankie

Age: 23

I mostly post about: daily life stuff, what i'm reading/watching and thoughts I have on it, I want to be more present and able to formulate my thoughts better (I do write analog diary sometimes, but I just could not make a habit out of it so far, online journaling might be a bit more instincutal to me), some fandom stuff too

My hobbies are: creative writing/story telling (fic and original), dancing, photography, sometimes I read

My fandoms are: Interview with the Vampire (third season babyyy), I've read some of the books too and just love vampires in general, talk to me about vampires!! also sk8 the infinity, Dan and Phil, Hunter x Hunter, Shameless (tv show), and I generally love horror (movies, books etc) not really a fandom but i'm very into 70s glam rock and also super facinated by fandom phenomena etc in general

I'm looking to meet people who: want to chat, share interests (but that's not a must), I'm not at all bothered by seemingly trivial/mundane posts, I'd also love to swatch movie recs (campy, horror, queer cinema, non-english, or just stuff ppl genuinely love)!!

My posting schedule tends to be: a bit sporadic tbh, sometimes I'll be on here every day (commenting, posting or just reading) somtimes I'll be absent for a few weeks, depends on where my mind is

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: I need ya'll to be anit-fascist. we are not (and frankly never have been) at a place in time where we can affort not to be, and while I am always open for political discussions this is my fun little online journal and anti-fascisim as a common ground is a must, I am also very very ciritcal of using generative AI (outside of specific scientific settings where it is actually usefull, there nuance)

Before adding me, you should know: I'm a trans man, english is not my first language (it's german), so grammar/spelling might be off, and I'm not really stressing about replying/commenting quickly, but that's just so I can have fun with being social/don't get overwhelmed not bc I don't wanna chat

Current Location: my room

petra posting in

thisfinecrew

Opinion piece from the Guardian: Congress wants to tie the United States to Israel with this new legislation. It’s a trap

A friend shared what they wrote to their representatives. Take any part of it that is helpful to you.

( Brief letter to Congress )

oursin

I suppose it is probably par for the course that the kind of bloke figuring in this article, Matchmakers Are Being Paid $25K to Find Trad Wives for Rich Men has apparently never met a specimen of the female of the species? or possibly another person.

Because those lists sound like somebody who has made up a list of requirements which don't have anything to do with personal preferences - okay, these are probably guys who live on Soylent and rawdog plane flights and so on and have not ever given any thought to the matter of developing individual tastes in things?

Anderson and other professional matchmakers tell WIRED that the men they work with are increasingly asking to be set up with traditional religious conservative women—regardless of whether they themselves self-identify as traditional, religious, or conservative.

I wonder what they mean when they say 'religious' or 'Christian', because, honestly, that covers a lot of territory, hmmmmm? ('Religious' could include a range of non-Christian options, 'Christian' =/= 'conservative'.)

Plus, the men do not sound to be prizes, even with the moolah (assuming it is actual moolah and not some crypto-based dream or AI bubble):

[T]here seems to be a disconnect between some of these men and the women themselves, who are often either already partnered or uninterested in the driven, sometimes socially awkward men who want to date them. For instance, when Anderson did finally manage to find a woman who fit her Austin-based client’s criteria, he alienated her almost instantly with his self-deprecating humor and boorish table manners[.]

Supposing that the women in question have bought into the 'tradwife' thing in the first place, I suspect that they have an image of rather more graciousness and traditional masculine courtesy than appears here in the prospective provider/protector.

The concluding anecdote:

One of her clients, a Dallas businessman in his early forties, went on several fruitless dates with a string of women, all of whom were, per his request, young, conservative, and Christian. But they never quite clicked, until she matched him with someone who was none of the above. They hit it off, and they’re currently still dating.
....
["]Someone may come to you wanting one thing and then realize the things they thought mattered weren't the most important things to be seeking after all.”

suggests that what, in fact, these guys need is just to Get Out More.

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October 2025

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dolorosa_12 - The universal solder that connects all of us and dissolves all of us
sorcyress - gay camp gay camp!
conuly - Judging by the hollering
cornerofmadness - Could be I'm overly sensitive but I doubt it
hannah - Saturday night.
watersword - technology was a mistake
senmut - June 13 - Share a Villain You Love to Hate
sovay - Down the smoking sea she came and over the rail of the dory she came and laughing to his arms
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petra in thisfinecrew - Guardian Opinion Piece - Integrating the US and Israeli militaries more thoroughly
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Page generated Jun. 14th, 2026 12:54 pm

singing in polyphonic harmony

Reading

The universal solder that connects all of us and dissolves all of us

gay camp gay camp!

Judging by the hollering

Could be I'm overly sensitive but I doubt it

Saturday night.

technology was a mistake

June 13 - Share a Villain You Love to Hate

Down the smoking sea she came and over the rail of the dory she came and laughing to his arms

Xena Woofier Princess

Posting Three Times in a Day Is Definetly Not Procrastinating

Multifandom: Multifandom Tropefest

Climate Change

Random Doctor Who question

Birdfeeding

Slick, 4 April 2016-13 June 2026

A feline birthday | First market visit of the year

Book Meme

General Questions

This or That

Yes or No

hello :]

Guardian Opinion Piece - Integrating the US and Israeli militaries more thoroughly

Have they even met another human being?

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October 2025

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