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.
Eventually I decided I should do something today, so I decided on the Queens Botanical Gardens. I showered, and washed my hair, and got dressed.
I started walking to the bus, when it suddenly hit me... It's Monday, isn't the Botanical Garden cosed on Monday? So I checked, using my phone, and sure enough, closed til 8:00 am Tuesday. Grumble.
But I had banking to do in Flushing, and I decided to get my face waxed, which it needed, so I went to the bus stop anyway. Took the 20 in, took care of my banking (I had a $50 bill I wanted to deposit and then withdraw in smaller denominations), and then went and got my face waxed.
I think she did a better job than any other time I've gone, and it cost me a bit more too. But so it goes.
I came home and decided I still wanted to do something. So I collected the book I'm reading, The King's Peace, and went to The Busy Bee coffee shop. I had an egg sandwich, very good, and a lavender cream latte. Then I sat an read for about 45 minutes. They close at 6:00 and it was just before closing time when I left.
Came home and puttered online. Actually got a little it of writing done, and then it was time to Team the FWiB.
We talked for close to an hour and a half, and then got off.
Then I went into the bedroom and played solitaire. I also called the Kid, of course she didn't answer. It really is starting to annoy me. Anyway I texted her to please call.
Fed the pets at pet feeding time. Then I took a picture of the doctor's order for my DEXA scan on Thursday and sent it to the lab.
And that's the day.
Gratitude List:
1. The FWiB.
2. Caught up on sleep.
3. Got my face waxed.
4, The Busy Bee.
5. Good books.
6.
The editor also says that they solicited several stories for the collection from writers who had never written SF before. Perhaps it is unfair that my reaction was to brace myself; I'll strive to be open minded. (It was also pointed out in the discussion that the Indigenous population of Australia is pretty small, so the pool of potential authors may not have been as deep as the editor might have wished.)
Some group members were not thrilled to learn that the book includes some excerpts from novels. We've run into this before and it tends to frustrate our purpose as a discussion group because we end up having the same conversation over and over, which is just "this didn't feel complete... because it isn't complete." The first three pieces we read are actual short stories, though!
"Muyum, a Transgression" by Evelyn Araluen (2017)
( A ghost travels the ruins of the world, finding that what seemed dead can come back. )
"Clatter Tongue" by K.A. Ren Wyld (2020)
[Note: The book lists this story under the author's former name Karen Wyld.]
( A grieving girl literally vomits the detritus of colonization when she is threatened. )
"Closing Time" by Samuel Wagan Watson (2020)
( In the early days of covid, a man wanders aimlessly. )
- book club,
- books,
- books: author: evelyn araluen,
- books: author: k.a. ren wyld,
- books: author: samuel wagan watson,
- books: editor: mykaela saunders,
- books: genre: speculative fiction,
- books: theme: death,
- books: theme: ghosts,
- books: theme: pandemic,
- books: type: short stories,
- books: year: 2017,
- books: year: 2020,
- books: year: 2022
Well I found it HERE on Scary Mommy (sigh don't ask) (does it by network and streaming channel) and via Rotten Tomatoes (does it alphabetically),
and Tv Line and Metacritic (which is more up to date than Scary Mommy, not surprising in the least).
Interesting, albeit not surprising, sidebar? Paramount is cancelling all the Star Trek in favor of all of the Taylor Sheridan modern (also uber violent) Westerns. (I'm feeling validated for cancelling Paramount and boycotting CBS. Honestly, people were willing to unsubscribe to Disney for Jimmy Kimmel, but not unsubscribe from Paramount for Star Trek and cancelling Colbert? People? Really?)
Gone are the days, I can just list them. There's too many. It would take me hours.
2. Listened to a podcast - with Juliet Landau interviewing David Greenwalt.
Landau is great at interviewing folks. She barely talks and just lets them talk, with various targeted questions that spur them to say more about the business, and she, for the most part, avoids problematic topics.
Take away? Greenwalt's reward for doing Buffy was supposed to be - joining the writing and producing team for the X-Files. But Greenwalt states that he couldn't write for the X-Files. He just couldn't write that type of television series. When Landau asked why, he said that he needed an emotional arc or an emotional core - that his writing was more character based and emotion based. He said that while the X-Files is brilliantly written - it has no emotional core. It's just not there, and he couldn't write for it because of that. The network apparently wanted Mulder and Scully to kiss in the first episode, and the writers fought against it and won. Which was the right decision - it wouldn't have worked at all.
X-Files is plot based, not character based. You literally could put anyone in it and it would for the most part work - a skeptic and a true believer.
That's actually a hard format to pull off well. Emotion based is easier.
Plot based can get redundant and old fast. X-Files had good writers: Tim Minear came from the X-Files as did Vince Gillian.
I didn't like the X-Files that much - for two reasons? 1) I don't really like hyper-realistic horror. I like my horror unrealistic. Also alien invasion/government conspiracy stories irritate me - it's most likely a side effect of being forced to watch a lot of 1950s, 1960s and 1970s sci-fi alien invasion/government conspiracy series/ and B movies as a child. My best friend at the time loved that shit. 2) It's a by the books, plot procedural with no emotional base - and I'm a bit like Greenwalt, I need the emotional arc. I get bored or my attention starts to wander if I don't have that. I'm more character than plot oriented, most people tend to be one or the other? Some are both. I preferred Fringe? It was less hyper-realistic scary, and had more of an emotional core.
3. Listened to Nerd Subculture - which is an Australian Podcast Series on well, American television series? It's not very good. FB kept throwing snatches of it at me. So I gave it a try. They lost me in their analysis of Beneath You. (It's a couple, one has seen the series, one hasn't.)
( Read more... )
- A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire by Emma Southon (2023): Did not finish, through no active fault of the book's own. The author does her absolute best to present a whole lot of misogyny with humor and clarity, but it does not hide the fact that this is all a lot of misogyny being presented. I skipped around, read a few chapters, and just couldn't stomach it. But what I read of it was good!
- The Lady With the Gun Asks the Questions: The Ultimate Miss Phryne Fisher Story Collection by Kerry Greenwood (2022): Did not finish. These are short stories, some very short. It poses an interesting question to the reader of what, precisely, makes a mystery/detective book. Should we see the process of the mystery being solved? Should we be able to solve the mystery? Do we need interiority in the solving process? This book has none of that! The stories are stories, very short, as we watch Phryne Fisher encounter a crime/confusing event (I hesitate to even call them mysteries) and then relay the solution, with a minimal amount of detectiving. Some stories have more than others. Some are just essentially lists of events. The short stories are not bad, in of themselves. And not all of them are murder mysteries! They are, however, not at all what I want in my quest for "can I please have a mystery book that isn't a murder mystery".
- The Keeper of Magical Things by Julie Leong (2025): I have gotten this out from the library twice and had to return it before getting more than a chapter or two into it. I may have to accept the fact that I don't find it very interesting or gripping. But maybe... maybe the third time out from the library... I'll actually read it.
- The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson (2023): DNF. Speaking of acceptance of my literary tastes, I likely must also accept the fact that I don't find Brandon Sanderson books entertaining to read. I read some of it. I flipped to the end, and the ending part did not clearly follow at all from the beginning, so I am certain many many things happened in the meanwhile to get from point A to point B. However, I don't really care. I guess I was hoping for something more like the Tough Guide To Fantasyland or Discworld or something, you know... funny, based on the title. It's a shame because this is, iirc, the third Sanderson I was "meh, this is boring" on, and if I could like his stuff, there would be so many books for me to read.
- Strange Houses by Uketsu, translated by Jim Rion (2025): I finished a book! I liked it! This is a "murder mystery" book told via The Author getting interested in a floor plan, talking to someone who is convinced it means the house was being used to murder people, then a bunch of interviews/discussions with people about floor plans of multiple houses and if the floor plans mean that the house must have been used to murder people. This started off as a really convoluted, very "why would they go to all that effort of hiding a child's existence" and then swerved into fantastic "wait so what actually happened" territory, including how much do you trust various sources and various documentary evidence, and ends with a great highlight on "yeah we don't actually know how much of what was presented here is true and what was fabricated and if so by whom and when". There's this hanging plot hole that the epilogue sort of jumps on top of as well, to wit: ( Read more... )
This book is pretty short, which is contributed to by when it refers back to a floor plan, it shows that part of the floor plan, which makes it really easy to follow along but also, frankly, pads the page count. Quick, zippy read, more of a puzzle-that-never-gets-solved book than a murder mystery.
roselerner commented on Racheloneill's Dahlia Blanket for Baby Odell

The explanations include a bunch of links for people who want to learn more, and often a random funny link to make people like me click all of them in order to find it. (A little practice can make you very good at guessing which one is the funny link.)
For example, yesterday's picture was Eye on the Milky Way by Miguel Claro. The explanation acknowledged the "unusual vertical horizon," and unusual vertical was a clickable link. I clicked it and laughed out loud.
Another great one from last year was Little Red Dots in the Early Universe, which concluded: "...searches are underway in our nearby universe to try to find whatever previous LRDs might have become today." The phrase searches are underway linked to a paper in The Astrophysical Journal, but the phrase become today was the one I was looking for.
Days 1-15
My check-in: Received the first round of beta notes on a story (not the longfic), and accepted a number of minor edits. Beta and I will get together and talk about possible bigger revisions later tonight.
Day 20:
Day 19:
Day 18:
( More days )
When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

The Golden Age of Hollywood came about when synchronized dialogue came to theaters and there were five big studios cranking out fantasies for the masses. One of the benefits of the industry being centered in southern California was the access to many types of locations. In 1927, Paramount Studios developed this location map showing what California landscapes could be used for faraway movie settings. No need to send a cast and crew overseas to recreate the Sahara Desert or a South Sea island! The audiences wouldn't know the difference, since they'd never been to those places.
But do these locations really resemble what they portrayed? Peter Atwood found photographs of the California spots labeled on the map and constructed another map with them. How plausible they are depends on how familiar you are with the real location. The picture of "Kentucky" looks like nothing I've seen in the state; your mileage may vary. Of course, in the 21st century, movie budgets often allow for shipping an entire production overseas, which can actually be cheaper than filming in California. See the two maps together here. -via kottke
So many hot topics, so little time.
music: I've said repeatedly that I think Trump is suffering from untreated syphilis. I'm still holding to that theory. I keep expecting to see pockmarks of dissolving flesh soon, but he keeps getting his skin covered up with makeup or bandages. It's only a matter of time, though. Meanwhile, I'm making a song playlist for that special day that must arrive eventually. Do you have any songs to recommend for this list (YouTube)?
job: Today at work was more than usual. I was late (30 minutes) going to lunch, and I was late (45 minutes) clocking out. I need to leave early sometime this week, so I don't have overtime to report.
stockpile: I've warned before that you need to buy what you can now, while you can. I reiterate that message now.
Click to read a list of things I expect to decrease in availability or value...
libertarianism: This topic deserves a whole post of its own, but I think I finally have the thing that will help the USA snap out of this terrible decades-long devotion to neoliberal economics. It's been happening ever since the Powell memo of 1971, since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposed the Humphrey Hawkins Act of 1978 to stop USA's transition to social democracy, and since 1980 when Ronald Reagan launched his presidential campaign promoting so-called trickle-down economics (or "voodoo economics" to quote another former President). Go to whichever AI chatbot you can access, and ask it this particular question:
"Use the Price equation to model the paradox of tolerance. What conditions (like detection of defectors and removal of non-cooperative actors) are required to make that comparison accurate."I want to delve farther into its answer. It seems to call out the ills of libertarian politics and neoliberal economics. The people demolishing our detection, reporting, intervention, and funding institutions know exactly what they're trying to accomplish. It's like they already understand the Price equation but have sided with demons to create perpetual cruelty in a libertarian hellscape instead of choosing the other option offered by the equation. They're succeeding so far, and this AI answer might help us defend attempts to restore/rebuild community, using incontrovertible math as justification.
I'm reminded of an idea I had before that our government should make it easy for citizens to do good things, and maybe that should be the next great push in governance goals. I have to write more about what's needed as we begin the restoration of the USA and its foundational ideals.
The beginning is near. Are you preparing?
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LL#1385
* After a string of crappy weather (rain, high temps) we seem to have settled back into Spring temperatures, with minimal rain expected this week.
* Everything is in bloom these days, daffodils, tulips, forsythia, weeping cherry, magnolias, and azaleas.
* My engineering team has declared this week a focus week, so fewer meetings! Hooray!
* Chez Helen Resort Spa Hotel & Halfway House for Vagabond Kittens has a new resident, currently going by Mr. Misty. He’s gorgeous, and clearly was someone’s baby because is not feral at all. All he wants to do is cuddle with my sister. I have already put my name down as willing to fly out to pick him up and give him a home.
* The fact that my sister took a photo of his troublepuffs and posted it to her Facebook so that her friends could discuss if he has been neutered or not. 🤣🤣🤣






