matt_doyle | Reading

An excellent teaching experience today; the kids were more engaged and we had fewer tech snafus (and were better prepped to pivot for almost all of them), the one downside being that I did not act fast enough before the kids descended like locusts on the leftover lunchboxes and therefore I gotta get my own lunch.

But at least I had already prepared to buy myself dinner as a "yay you did a teaching!", so I can just get a gyro wrap and fries instead of bánh mì and spring rolls without any kind of emotional agonies.

A friend's yard sale is tomorrow and I have successfully offloaded a surprising number of things for that — two curtain sets! branded mugs! IKEA plates! — and I need to set up folks to care for the gherkin while I am away, and someone to pick up the corms for a public beautification project that is also happening then, and after a followup call, the Parks Department has finally finally admitted to looking at my pollinator garden plans and has feedback, which I gotta respond to. Also laundry needs to happen.

mrissa

Thirteen Swords That Made a Prince: Highlights From the Arms & Armory Collection, Sharang Biswas (Strange Horizons)

Biologists say it will take at least a generation for the river to recover (Klamath River Hymn), Leah Bobet (Reckoning)

Watching Migrations, Keyan Bowes (Strange Horizons)

With Only a Razor Between, Martin Cahill (Reactor)

And the Planet Loved Him, L. Chan (Clarkesworld)

Holly on the Mantel, Blood on the Hearth, Kate Francia (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

The Jacarandas Are Unimpressed By Your Show of Force, Gwynne Garfinkle (Strange Horizons)

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Gorgon, Gwynne Garfinkle (Penumbric)

In Connorville, Kathleen Jennings (Reactor)

Orders, Grace Seybold (Augur)

~~Brooklyn~~ Beijing, Hannah Yang (Uncanny)

elisem

( today's argh chorus, because silly body is silly in ouchful ways )

mrissa

In May the subscribers of If There's Anyone Left got to read my short story, The Things You Know, The Things You Trust. Now it's free to read online! Go, read, enjoy!

lassarina

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yhlee

Candle Arc #1, color version, at

candlearc just to keep it corralled. Note that it's viewer discretion advised on account of cuss words, violence, and hexarchate-typical awfulness.

UPDATED: Alternately: Candle Arc #1 on its own website at Candle Arc (candlearc.com).

I have the Ka-Blam setup in progress so fingers crossed I can make it available via print-on-demand at Indyplanet in the nebulous future, depending on how orchestration homework is going. /o\

Preview & update notifications at Buttondown. (This is an email newsletter, but it's archived online. You do not need to sign up.)

camwyn

So, got COVID last week. Thought it was just bad cold symptoms, then I realized I was feeling my shirt against my skin the way I only do if I have a fever. Since I was supposed to go for an abdominal ultrasound (possible gallstones) last Friday I got a COVID and flu at-home test and spent fifteen minutes in the bathroom.

Fever never went above 100.6 for me, thankfully. Did not lose what little sense of smell I had to begin with. I no longer have to isolate but I am now back to my all-too-familiar state of 'sinuses full of snot, post nasal drip, HORK HORK HORK coughing'. I'm taking a store-brand severe cold and sinus pill every four hours for that and drinking so much tea I feel like the goddamn harbor. Could be worse so I am not going to bitch beyond that. I'm definitely grateful my boss's first statement to me when I logged in on Monday, after dealing with a tech support issue, was 'how're you doing? Plan on working from home this week'. I wasn't looking forward to mornings of trying to assess whether I was fit to haul my ass to the ferry terminal or not.

having said this I am trying to remember where I go to edit the quote at the top of my journal page because yesterday I found out about a species of water beetle in Japan that has been documented as surviving being eaten by frogs, but only so long as the beetle is able to keep moving. The scientists tested it by applying wax that immobilized two legs to several beetle. None of them made it out in any recognizable form, whereas the others managed to get through. Longest time documented was several hours, others made it through in 115 minutes, but one beetle managed to speedrun the frog in six, which... has to have been quite the experience for the amphibian.

Mostly I just like the sound of 'keep moving. there is light at the end of the frog'.

ETA: found the customization page.

watersword

As per usual: I am not even a little bit ready for the Days of Awe! Emotionally. I'm pretending that the cleaner was scheduled yesterday so I could start 5786 with a clean house. It's gonna be real weird to be with my mother for Y"K, although really most of that day will be spent on the ferry, which will actually be a lovely way to pass the time thinking about Y"K stuff.

I have eaten my apples & honey and gone to the river and filled my cup with friend time, and that's a pretty good way to start the year. L'shana tovah, friends.

watersword

Block party yesterday extremely good: I met someone who keeps bees on his garage roof, and may have acquired volunteers for the pollinator garden, and talked about needlework with someone, and ate delicious fried chicken and upside-down peach cake. A+ community experience.

Today the cleaner is taking a crack at my dishwasher filter because I could not face a further attempt, and I am doing the interesting parts of my job (discussing copyright in archives! writing semantic HTML in preparation for writing modern CSS! prepping for a teaching commitment later this week!), and tomorrow I will go to the river for Tashlich first thing, and then have a co-writing sesh with H., and then the apple tasting flight with local honey (not from the garage bees) with friends in the park.

There is a constituent meeting with my state senator I am planning to go to later this week, he seems mostly useless but not actively evil, wish me luck.

lassarina

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muccamukk

Haven't done this one in a while. Following AO3, not the drabbles/ficlets only posted to DW. Also haven't written in a while, so most of these are a few years old.

Share the first and last lines of the last five stories you have posted to AO3.

The Fire and the Ember, Masters of the Air, Marge/Peggy

First: They didn't really need to climb in through Marge's bedroom window, it wasn't like her parents didn't know that Peggy was spending the weekend, but it was tradition at this point.

Last: She pressed her nose against the back of Marge's neck, and did just that.

A Fire in Arkansas, Band of Brothers, Johnny/Bull

First: Johnny figured that the old saw "smooth runs the water where the brook is deep" had been invented by someone who'd known Bull Randleman, but even he didn't expect what his corporal said as they sat in a meagre pool of shade half a mile out of Helena, Arkansas.

Last: He clapped Bull on the arm, Bull shoved him back, and they jogged forward towards the rising sun.

Natasha's Christmas Plans, Top Gun: Maverick, Natasha/Callie

First: "So here's the plan," Natasha said as she closed the hatch to the stateroom she shared with Callie.

Last: First chance she got, she was going to find some plastic mistletoe to tape to the bottom of her bunk, but for now they didn't need it.

Across the Waves, Across the Heather, Kidnapped! by RLS, Davie/Alan

First: Alan landed on the deck of the Covenant breathless and reeling, all those good men dead, and nearly himself as well.

Last: "Oh, I could kiss you!" Alan cried, and then did.

Every Time He Hears Their Voices (An End of the Affair Remix), Band of Brothers, Don/Skip/Alex

First: This is the moment Don has lived in since the tenth of January 1945: He's tucked back away from the line, catching a few minutes rest as he tries to choke down beans that half froze the instant Joe Domingo ladled them onto his plate.

Last: This is what does: all of the days after.

muccamukk

"Beatitudes for a Queerer Church" by Jay Hulme

Blessed are the outcasts;
the ostracized, the outsiders.

Blessed are the scared;
the scarred, the silent.

Blessed are the broken;
for they are not broken.

Blessed are the hated;
for they are not worthy of hate.

Blessed are those who try;
those who transform, who transition.

Blessed are the closeted;
God sees you shine anyway.

Blessed are the queers;
who love creation enough to live the truth of it,
despite a world that tells them they cannot.

And blessed are those
who believe themselves unworthy of blessing;
what inconceivable wonders you hold.

watersword

I impulse-made pasta dough in the stand mixer last night, and then today, I:

went to the farmer's market, where the good sourdough vendor was in attendance and recognized me, and I also picked up an apple tasting flight (Macoun, McIntosh, Honeycrisp, and Gala) and honey for Rosh Hashanah Tuesday, as well as a dozen gorgeous multicolored eggs, a purple cauliflower, and various other vegetables;
meandered around the neighborhood in perfect early-fall sunshine, following the treasure map of local yard sales, and one house was giving away their stuff, including an adorable little pitcher and stationery and stamps and linen napkins I'm going to turn into embroidery projects;
did some gardening and met up with a friend and her kid, and hung out with them for a few hours and made play-doh shapes;
came home and rolled out half the pasta dough and made ravioli and took a hot bath.

And now I'm going to drink some mint tea and lie on the couch and read a book and cuddle my cat. Tomorrow there is a block party and more fresh pasta to roll. This all feels suspiciously idyllic.

muccamukk

Watch on YouTube

Content notes for suicide, self harm and grooming, on this one. I'd seen reference to this story, but hadn't realised how bad it was.

yhlee

Ah, the art yarn of it all. :3

handspun yarn

2-ply from these singles:

lizvogel

(Copied from comments elseweb, because I want to be able to find this should it happen again.)

I don't deliberately choose stories to stretch my writing ability; I just write what catches my interest. But sometimes, it seems, stretchy sneaks up on you.

The current WIP is definitely of the snuck-up-on-me kind of stretchy.

Some of it is simply that I'm having to be more analytical than is my wont. For example, I need a bigger cast for the ending to work, so I'm having to deliberately create characters, when normally they just wander into my head fully-formed. I'm trying to balance the demographics, because while I don't care, my MC would. And I'm measuring out their introductions so that I don't end up dumping a whole horde of people in at once Because The Plot Said So, which means I'm watching the pacing/structure a lot more carefully, when usually I'll just do things whenever it feels right.

There's also a lot more threads in play than I anticipated for something as surface-simple as "man survives Apocalypse". I wouldn't go so far as to call them all plot threads, but they're definitely concepts in play throughout the novel. So I have to keep the theology discussions balanced against the practical necessities, and time them so that the one supports or feeds off of the other. I introduced an additional outside threat that I planned to do more with, ended up dropping, and am going to have to weave back in PDQ before it becomes a broken promise to the reader. There's a character with a Secret, who spends the first two-thirds of the book saying things that everybody takes one way, but that the character and I know mean something else entirely. (That part's been fun; cue evil author cackle of glee.) I'm having to do more set-up than I'm used to for the ending, because none of the characters know what's coming so none of them are actively working toward it, but several of them are unknowingly doing things that will contribute to it. Having to hide the plot from all the characters is definitely a new thing for me.

Looking at it like this, none of these things are supremely stretchy for me (except maybe hiding the plot from the characters). But trying to do a whole bunch of moderately-stretchy things at the same time definitely adds up. And here I thought I just had a nice little trying-not-to-die-in-a-devastated-world story. (No, seriously, I thought this one was going to be relatively easy.)

It's definitely taking longer, too. Not so much in time (I'm always slow) but in word count. I'm at 80,000 words right now; my natural length is usually 80-90,000. This sucker's got at least 30K more words to go, maybe more, and I've been saying that for at least the past 10,000 words now. The more I work on it, the farther from the end I get. So the little voice in the back of my brain saying "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" is not helping.

And of course all this is coming to a head at about the two-thirds point, which is where I usually bog down on a novel anyway. I know what happens, I don't care any more, can rocks just fall and everybody dies? This has nothing to do with the quality of the story and everything to do with the writer, but it's hard enough to slog through even when the path forward is relatively, er, straightforward. When I have to keep jumping between multiple paths and keeping them all in sync and this is hard work, dammit, it's awfully easy to decide the yardwork is a higher priority.

Current Mood: thinky
Current Music: Imagine Dragons, "Radioactive"

lassarina

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elisem

In the course of dealing with silly body stuff with which I will not bore you, my sleep cycle got turned upside down again, so I am busy with various attempts at precessing back to a more manageable situation.

Somewhere in some book or other, a character said something about the phrase for having a hangover in a certain language was "my eyes are not opposite the holes." It's not a hangover, but when my sleep schedule is deeply out of synch and I'm trying to do stuff connected to the outside world's schedule, I kind of feel like my life is not opposite the holes.

How's your life matching your hours of access lately?

elisem

So a little while back, for. my birthday I got various tasty things to nibble. One of them was salmon skin and salted egg crisps, with curry leaves in the mix, and some spice. Extremely tasty. When I got down to the bottom of the bag, there were a lot of little shards and crumbs that were particularly spicy. A mental note was. made for possible future uses.

Today was a future use. There wasn't a fresh vegetable in the house, but I wanted something with both softness and crunch, and wanted it to be in something that had umami plus. The last of the bread gave me toast. There was some braunsweiger (liver paste, Nueske's in particular) which went onto the toast, cut pretty thinly. (I am from people who like thick slices of braunsweiger on toast or bread, and normally I do too, but this was a special application, part flavor and part structural adhesive.) Then I spooned out some of the fragments from the bottom of the bag of salted egg and salmon skin crisps, laying them on top of the liver paste and pressing them in with the back of the spoon, and had it open-faced.

Big win. Big tasty win. Especially the way the curry leaves went with the braunsweiger.

Must remember this and make it again.

Part of the idea for this one was looking at the braunsweiger and wishing I could magically make a banh mi from the place in Global Market appear. So some of the taste combo came from that. Lettuce or bok choy or other green or variously colored thinly sliced vegetables, with vinegar or not, would have been great, but there was no such suppy in the house, alas. Although hey, there is a little new kraut in the back of the fridge which should get eaten up. Hmmm. Although we are out of bread now. Hmm. I wonder how it would be on top of ramen noodles. Pity that the boiled eggs are all et up.

Do you have any tasty kludged-together food that you are fond of? What gave you the idea?

(My term for kludged-together food is "cream of refrigerator soup," which explains the tag. No actual soup was generated in this particular instance.)