Member Posts

Current Mood: frustrated

Entry tags:

writing

Crash after the editing high

I knew editing at that pace wouldn't be sustainable, and was firmly in "make the most of it while it lasts" mode but man, I've been struggling with the post-high crash. I know, I know, that "being at your 100%" looks very different on different days, and it felt like I was running at like 140% for a while on top of that but damn. The difference is crushing, and I get frustrated enough to tear up. I'm not sure if it's because the first half of the year was so bumpy and it left me more brittle, or because it's so rare that I get a writing high from editing rather than drafting but gaaah. I just remember my first NaNo, the only one I won back in 2006, and how creativity seemed to just feed off itself... like I was writing so much, all of the time, that when a couple of strange little events happened I ended up writing a couple of short stories about them too, on top of my 1.6k words a day. Glorious times. And during the lockdowns I was writing during my lunch breaks, too. Even if not quite at that level of intensity, I'd love to catch that spirit again, and on days when I can have several intense, focused writing sessions, it feels like getting closer. I probably need better systems. Mornings are fine, I have a good routine in place and that time is mostly under my control, but later in the day I struggle and flail to even catch 15 minutes of focused writing time.

I'm not depressed or anything, and I'm still editing for 15-30 minutes a day, sometimes even one hour! Progress is progress! But it still feels like I slammed into a wall I now have to slowly climb with my bare hands and nails, when I was the Road Runner going Meep Meep! and grinning wildly for a while here. And the wall is wet and slimy and it smells weird too XD

Entry tags:

dreamwidth: community thursdays

Community Thursday

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week...

Commented in finalfantasy, bbtp_challenge.

Signal boosts:

Just wanted to bring up pinchhits again as it's really great when current Pinch Hits are also shared there. I follow a bunch of exchange comms, but there are others I could also write for occasionally. Meanwhile, you can find recent PHs there for a couple of exchanges like raremaleslashex and justmarried!

Current Mood: tired

Entry tags:

A Shorter Blaugust Post

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: drained

barely here post but I couldn't resist

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Entry tags:

[migraine] peripheral vision nonsense

The thing about buying new glasses, right, is that I've been feeling avoidant about it in part because I think I was slightly migrainey the day I had the most recent test done and I was already pretty sure that my vision goes... wrong... when migrainey -- most noticeable when moving, but always... there.

Slightly more specifically: it's neither scintillating scotoma nor loss-of-whole-field-of-vision nor any of the other very classic visual auras; instead it's a sense that I'm not managing to track movement properly along the lower edge and especially the lower corners of my field of vision.

... which matches up really well, actually, with the peripheral vision deficiencies that, er, showed up during my last eye test.

I've been noticing the Weirdness on-and-off for quite some time now, and was dithering back and forth about whether it was just confirmation bias in that I was only noticing it when otherwise migrainey -- but then on Monday, while on my way to my GP surgery to pick up some paperwork, it resulted in the railings I was going past (and that I go past regularly!) causing an extremely pronounced and unmistakeable strobing effect. I am very confident that that is not something I would somehow manage to confirmation bias myself out of noticing most of the time, so, hurrah, Definitely A Migraine Symptom (for lo, on Monday I was migrainey) it is.

The thing that is mildly baffling me is that I can't actually find (admittedly on a fairly cursory search) any description of specifically peripheral vision fuckery as a migraine thing! Lots of mentions of tunnel vision, lots of mentions of classic aura, and one case study in which "peripheral vision" is used metaphorically. So, you know, let the record show, &c.

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Affordable Housing

In this all-women tiny home neighborhood, rent starts at $450. Residents want it to be a nationwide blueprint

Robyn Yerian, 70, used to live in a two-bedroom tiny home that cost just $57,000.

In 2022, she was yearning for more connection — as well as some “passive income.”

So she took some money from her retirement savings, bought a 5-acre plot of land in Cumby, Texas, and is now the landlord and community leader of The Bird’s Nest, an all-women tiny home neighborhood home to 11 women ages 60 to 80.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy and cooler. :D

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 8/20/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 8/20/25 -- I watered spaces to put the irises.

EDIT 8/20/25 -- I planted a Dangerous Mood Bearded Iris (lavender standards with near-black falls) in the purple-and-white garden. I planted a Montmartre Bearded Iris (purple with yellow edges) and a Ziggy Reblooming Bearded Iris (yellow standards with burgundy-and-yellow streaked falls) under the maple tree.

EDIT 8/20/25 -- I watered the newly planted irises.

EDIT 8/20/25 -- I watered the old picnic table and the patio plants.

EDIT 8/20/25 -- I watered the new picnic table and septic garden.

EDIT 8/20/25 -- I watered the telephone pole garden and some of the savanna plants.

Cicadas and crickets are singing. Fireflies are out.

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

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Read "The Bottle Wall" by Smokingboot

This is a lovely romantic fable about a widow who falls in love with a cloud-herder.

Entry tags:

Wednesday has been asked by SRS academic press to read a manuscript

What I read

Finished Dragon Harvest.

Read the latest Literary Review.

Read Angela Thirkell, What Did It Mean? (The Barsetshire Novels Book 23) (1954), which, I depose, is the one where Ange, sighing and groaning, realised that she was going to have to write The One About The Coronation, like what everybody else was doing. (The title alludes to a cryptic prophecy by one of the local peasantry.) So there is a fair amount of phoning it in, but on the other hand, some Better Stuff than one might expect for that period of her output.

On the go

And it's back to Lanny: Upton Sinclair, A World to Win (Lanny Budd #7) (1946), in which WW2 is raging but so far, USA is not in it and Our Hero can still pootle about Europe under the guise of being an art expert while mingling in very elevated company indeed.

Up next

Once that is done, I should probably turn my attention to the very different WW2 experience of Nick Jenkins in the next one up for the Dance to the Music of Time book group, The Soldier's Art.

Entry tags:

film

[film] The trial

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

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

recurring posts

Cuddle Party

Everyone needs contact comfort sometimes. Not everyone has ample opportunities for this in facetime. So here is a chance for a cuddle party in cyberspace. Virtual cuddling can help people feel better.

We have a cuddle room that comes with fort cushions, fort frames, sheets for draping, and a weighted blanket. A nest full of colorful egg pillows sits in one corner. There is a basket of grooming brushes, hairbrushes, and styling combs. A bin holds textured pillows. There is a big basket of craft supplies along with art markers, coloring pages, and blank paper. The kitchen has a popcorn machine. Labels are available to mark dietary needs, recipe ingredients, and level of spiciness. Here is the bathroom, open to everyone. There is a lawn tent and an outdoor hot tub. Bathers should post a sign for nude or clothed activity. Come snuggle up!

(no subject)

Happy birthday,

gmh and

ravurian!

Current Mood: sleepy

Entry tags:

Final Destination Movie Extravaganza!

Guess who just found out that ALL the Final Destination movies (including the new one) are on streaming services and can FINALLY have their movie marathon this Saturday??

So now despite the incredibly terrifying passage of time, I am EXCITED for this weekend!! I was also gonna try to go see the sing-a-long version of Kpop Demon Hunters since it comes to theaters this weekend, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the spoons or not, so I’ll see how this week pans out and make a decision from there! Saturday for sure is DEFINITELY Final Destination day!! >:D

My mom would’ve been so GEEKED that there was another FD movie, so I hope her spirit can live through me when I watch it. ; u; That and Final Destination is one of my top favorite old school horror movies, so I’m OVER THE MOON about this!! 🥰

Hope everyone is having a good week so far!! Been in one of those “fuck it, WE BALL” kinda moods when it comes to writing, so look forward to some writing here this week!! ^ o^)/

Current Music: "Language Is a Virus," Laurie Anderson

Entry tags:

food,
tv

The Usual

Sometimes I think about "Earl Grey, hot."

When TNG was airing, I wasn't drinking or ordering tea yet. Now that I do, I find myself having to make clarifications about tea that I wouldn't usually expect, like clarifying that I want a chai latte in the morning to be hot, even if it's summer. But I mostly think about it, because when I make tea for Psyche, she does not want it hot, just warm.

The electric kettle heats the water to a good steeping point, just below boiling, and after a few minutes that's where I expect it too be. It's probably too hot for my own good, but I still take a few sips, quickly, to get the first taste. Then as I work, and periodically forget it, it cools more and more, and my sips get larger and larger. If I get absorbed too much, and it reaches near room temperature, I usually just shotgun the remainder so I can make another cup.

Psyche will wait for the tea to cool down to warm before she starts drinking. And that can take a while. I've taken to steeping her tea a little short of ideal, then dropping some ice after removing the leaves, so that she can get a head start.

In Star Trek's future, I imagine that tea is replicated the way Psyche likes it. Imagine it brewed hot, but then already cooled down to a pleasant warmth, for easy drinking. By default, then Starfleet officers are picking up their cups of tea brewed several minutes before it was even desired.

Picard doesn't brew his own tea (where we regularly see him onscreen), but he clearly already has a history with tea that starts too hot to drink. Why else would anyone think to order their tea hotter than drinkable, in a time where pizza never burns the roof of your mouth either? It suggests some of the family history, that in his past, at least, he was party to the manual steeping of tea and still moves to its rhythms.

Current Mood: angry
Current Location: My Room
Current Music: "Highwomen" by the Highwomen

Sinners & Stardust Assaults

Smart Bitches Trashy Books has a timeline (sexual assault; NSFW) of what happened at Sinners & Stardust, which is a convention I was not familiar with until this news hit FFA.

This is, incidentally, where radical-feminism-type thinking leads us: when you believe that all sexual harm comes from The Penis, you wind up in a position where you don't believe it's assault when women do it to men, and... it absolutely can be, and from the descriptions this isn't even questionable. It is absolutely assault. And given that bit with the AirTag, some techno-stalking as well. (Imagine if he didn't have an iPhone; he might never have known about that part, and that part could have been incredibly dangerous.)

Current Mood: amused

Entry tags:

Robotics

WARNING: Do not watch with mouth full.

Robots race, play football, crash and collapse at China's 'robot Olympics'

BEIJING, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China kicked off the three-day long World Humanoid Robot Games on Friday, looking to showcase its advances in artificial intelligence and robotics with 280 teams from 16 countries.
Robots competed in sports such as track and field, and table tennis, as well as tackled robot-specific challenges from sorting medicines and handling materials to cleaning services

Watching the evolution of robotics on a primitive planet is hilarious.

Current Mood: artistic

Entry tags:

exchanges

Rare Pair tagset

I contributed some nominations to the Rare Pair Exchange that's coming up, and I signed up for more than a few things. The deadline to sign up is tomorrow, so I should be getting my assignment in just a few days.

There are some reaaaaally obscure ships in this tagset! I was surprised to see characters from "The Big Country," a cowboy movie from 1958 -- surprisingly good, so I decided to include it in my offers -- as well as a ton of other, similarly obscure ships.

I was also surprised to see Dr. Gurathin/Murderbot, because to me, that's not very rare! Murderathin fics have been exploding in the wake of the Murderbot season finale. I just checked and there are 238 complete, English language fics for this ship. So it qualifies -- barely!! (There need to be fewer than 250 such fics in order for a ship to qualify as rare.)

For the first time, I'm requesting and offering very different sets of ships. There were lots of things I'd like to see, but don't particularly want to write or feel qualified to write, hence my decisions.

We'll see what the fandom gods have in store for me! 😁

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Food

Build an Emergency Food Supply List

There are several ways to build an emergency food supply to stock a survival kit and a “bug out bag”. While you can purchase specialized food products or a self-contained emergency preparedness kit, these can be costly and wasteful.

Instead, you can simply assemble shelf-stable foods that you already buy or preserve at home. Many canned, dried, and pickled foods are quite suitable for use in an emergency kit.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

In particular, watch for sales. Anytime you see a shelf-stable food that you use, consider buying extra if feasible.

victory of the day is GLASSES

Ordered, at least, to pick up next week.

Indulgence is a writing slope off eBay with a lucky dip of writing utensils, one of which I am very cheerful about...

Current Mood: excited

Entry tags:

American Meadows Order

My fall order from American Meadows has arrived. :D Now I just need the weather to break so I can actually get out to plant things. If you're still shopping, this nursery has some stock of fall bulbs left and some of those are on sale.

Dangerous Mood Bearded Iris (lavender standards with near-black falls)

Montmartre Bearded Iris (purple with yellow edges)

Ziggy Reblooming Bearded Iris (yellow standards with burgundy-and-yellow streaked falls)