summercomfort

There's little I can say about the political landscape. The news is horrifying pretty much everywhere. US friends in particular right now, especially in ICE-besieged spots, you're in my heart.

Reading: I haven't picked up a new novel since I finished Inside Threat. I'm still slowly reading Braiding Sweetgrass. And for my first non-work manga read of the year, since I'd really like to get back to actually reading manga, I reread vol. 1 of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, chosen largely because a newish Bluesky friend loves it and it's been so long since I read any of the series. Before the huge lull in it being published in English*, it and Yotsuba&! were the only manga I was actively keeping up with in terms of actually reading, as opposed to a few things that I've still been buying. (Looking at you, once-a-year release of Kaze Hikaru, which I will someday actually read.) But I've basically forgotten everything, so back to the start I go.

*Publication finally--technically--resumed with omnibus editions, and am I still mildly annoyed that to get vol. 15, I had to buy the fifth omnibus, thus rebuying vol. 13-14? Yes. Has any more come out since then? Nope.

Watching:

scruloose and I finished season 1 of Pluribus, which got even weirder than we expected, and in ways we wouldn't have guessed. Really, really good. (Also Yona watched the season finale with us, very intently tracking everything that happened onscreen. No idea why she was suddenly so fascinated.)

Playing: I put in a bit more time with I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, and it's not really clicking for me; I think this style of game (RPG? A story that unfolds differently depending on your choices, Choose Your Own Adventure-style?) may just not be my thing?

In huge-for-me game news, Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven has dropped. It's the first really major expansion (priced as a full game, which makes sense given the scope) after several smaller expansions, and I'm overwhelmed by the number of new things I suddenly need to do to keep my little cult happy and thriving, but am having fun.

Weathering/Householding: It's currently very cold by local standards, esp. with the windchill, and tonight we have a lot of snow rolling in that's expected to keep falling all through tomorrow and possibly into Tuesday. Yesterday NSP (the power corporation) (*hisses*) announced that the grid is under an unusually heavy load (presumably due to people heating their homes?) and asked everyone to try to minimize power usage. It is very cold, yes, but not freakishly so, and public sentiment about NSP is...uh...very fucking negative, what with their profits and their constantly skyrocketing fees and their data breach and, oh, the rickety fucking grid that we are all paying through the nose for while fully expecting to lose power every time a breeze picks up. So we're putting off laundry, at least (one of the usual Sunday chores), and I'd had notions of actually baking something (!), but that may not happen; if it does, it'll probably involve something like mixing up cookie dough and only baking a handful in the toaster oven, or seeing about doing the actual baking with supper also in the oven (less likely; we'll probably just avoid the oven entirely).

("Please use less power" is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but the combination of garbage infrastructure and the level of energy poverty in this province makes it insult to injury.)

Current Mood: annoyed

conuly

The plot is picking up and I have no idea where it's going!

Also, it is absolutely impossible to track down the music for that show. There was one song I liked, so I tried to look it up. No dice. I eventually gave in and searched up "Killjoys soundtrack" and then, armed with the song title and artist name, tried again. Still no luck. I did find an entirely different song that's apparently written by somebody with no internet presence at all. If it wasn't apparently their only song I'd suspect AI. That picture is AI, though, has "artificial" written all over it, in illegible text. Song's not too uncatchy, but - I honestly don't know why the music in Killjoys is so hard to find.

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minoanmiss

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Current Mood: amused

harpers_child

1. My life would be better if the weather would pick a temperature and stay there and stop flopping around every few days. I have lost most of the month on the couch with migraines.

2. Speaking of weather, we're well prepared for the incoming ice storm including coordinating with friends and family for warm places to be if someone loses power.

3. As someone in the far reaches of the alphabet I am so tired of getting ads everywhere for Valentine's day lingerie or even bra sales. The number of times I've seen "extended sizes" advertised, clicked through, and been disappointed because they mean they go to a G cup ... innumerable. Also companies need to stop with small/med/large sizing in general. Band and cup size can be vastly different.

3b. If you have a rec for a company with actual extended sizing, I usually wear a 30JJ in Panache. Measurements are 31 inch underbust, 45 in overbust in a bra, and 47 in overbust naked. I am having bra fit issues at the moment and am 80% certain that I'm going to have to go custom which is a totally different set of problems.

Current Mood: cranky

yhlee

conuly

And not, apparently, legitimately going anywhere?

Guys, you need to tell me these things! Now where am I supposed to pirate this one from? (I mean, uh, legally obtain it - oh, fuck it.)

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: hopeful

yhlee

Nicolas Niarchos. The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth. I think I got this rec from Farah Mendlesohn. Apparently the entire "green energy" resource supply chain (including/especially the batteries) is fucked to hell and gone, including/especially in the human rights arena. Which is not surprising as such, but this is a field I don't follow in any detail (the world is FULL OF THINGS TO KNOW and I can't be expert in them all).

From the jacket copy:

In this rush for green energy, the world has become utterly reliant on resources unearthed far away and willfully blind to the terrible political, environmental, and social consequences of their extraction. Why are the children of the Democratic Republic of the Congo routinely descending deep into treacherous mines to dig with the most rudimentary of tools, or in some cases their bare hands? Why are Indonesia's seas and skies being polluted in a rush for battery metals? Why is the Western Sahara, a source for phosphates, still being treated like a colony? Who must pay the price for progress?

This is ©2026 and just released, but of course...:gestures at current events:

:looks at small collection of slide rule, Napier's bones, abacuses, manual typewriters: Well.

yhlee

Featured Friday: Yoon Ha Lee [Zealotscript.co.uk, interview].

I apologize in advance for the closing :kof: pun.

Which one of your characters would you most like to spend time with?

Excuse me, I had to be revived from a fit of the vapors. I give my characters difficult lives (when they survive at all) so it’s a common joke in my family that if they ever came to life, I am so, so very dead. I guess Shuos Mikodez from Machineries of Empire is the least likely to kill or torture me inhumanely for no reason. Alternately, Min from Dragon Pearl is like ten years old and I am not only a parent, I used to teach high school math so I reckon I can handle her. (Famous last words…)

conuly

If you're actually writing for children, especially young children, then I guess you don't want to scare them off - but if you're writing for adolescents or adults you can afford to be honest.

So here's the thing. Every book or story in which a character gets glasses for the first time - or the second if their first pair is painfully out of date - emphasizes how clear everything is and how they can see so much detail that they had no idea they were missing. And yes, that's a thing. None of them point out that it's a thing that can be less "wondrous" and more "disorienting and distracting" until you've gotten used to seeing that much detail.

None of them mention that if your prescription is strong enough - especially if there's astigmatism involved - your perception will be wonky and you'll have a hard time judging how close and far things are for a day or two.

Definitely none of them mention that you will absolutely get eye strain every time you get a new prescription, and possibly headaches or nausea to accompany it. It goes away, again, in a day or two, but until it does you'll feel like you're cross-eyed at all times. (And with children, every year is a new prescription. They grow, which means their eyeballs grow, and just like that growth is unlikely to suddenly give them perfect vision if they already were nearsighted, it's also unlikely to keep them exactly where they were before.)

Absolutely none of them point out that if you've never worn glasses before you'll have to spend the aforementioned day or two learning how to not see the frames. This is also true if your old frames were much bigger than the new ones, but that, at least, is less likely to apply to children - their faces grow along with the rest of them, necessitating larger frames, so even if they choose a smaller overall style with the new pair the fact that it fits properly may even out.

Moving past the realm of accurate fiction writing, children really should have their first optometrist appointment, at the latest, in the summer before first grade (so, aged 5 or 6 years old). Ideally, they'll have it before they start school, at age 2 or 3, but you can't convince people on that point. They should have a new appointment every year until the age of 20 or so, or every two years if every year really is unfeasible, even if you don't think you see the signs of poor vision. They won't complain that they can't see, because they'll just assume that their vision is normal. This is true even if they wear glasses - you never notice how bad your eyes have gotten until you get a new prescription, and then it's like "whoa".

The screening done at school or at the doctor's office is imperfect at best. You really want the optometrist.

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brithistorian

In preparation for the big strike against ICE's invasion of Minnesota tomorrow, I saw a post on threat saying that Dream Museum 1 and Second-Tier Museum 10 were closing tomorrow in solidarity.[^1] So I checked all the rest. Dream Museums 1 and 2 are closed tomorrow in solidarity. Second-Tier Museums 1-4 and 6-10 are closed tomorrow in solidarity. Second-Tier Museum 5 is closed from the 21st to the 24th for exhibit installation, while they are closed tomorrow, it's not necessarily in solidarity. It's also not necessarily not in solidarity, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt (for now), while also keeping my eye on them.

[^1] For those of you where are new here: I made the list of Dream Museums 1 and 2 and Second-Tier Museums 1-10 so I can talk about my ongoing job search without actually identifying any of the museums I'm applying to work at.

yhlee

The keyboard's legit great but I replaced some of the keycaps (the black ones that let the glow shine through) because I cannot find the hecking function keys in the dark reliably; I don't often use them outside of music production, the lighting in this room sucks, and I have a horrifying number of typing keyboards where the function key locations are just enough offset to throw off touch-typing.

custom keycaps and space bar

I'm unreasonably happy with the space bar! The seller will 3D print custom images/text if you send an image so I made a design for hilarity. :)

osprey_archer

I’ve been enjoying Dorothy Lathrop’s books so much that I checked the university catalog to see if they had any other books by her, and discovered that she illustrated a book of poems by Sara Teasdale! Teasdale has been one of my favorites since we read “There Will Come Soft Rains” in high school, so of course I had to give it a go.

I’m working my way through the book slowly, a poem a night. I ought to save this one till next October, but I haven’t the patience, so here it is.

Late October
By Sara Teasdale

I found ten kinds of wild flower growing
On a steely day that looked like snowing:
Queen Anne’s lace, and blue heal-all,
A buttercup, straggling, grown too tall,
A rusty aster, a chicory flower–
Ten I found in half an hour.
The air was blurred with dry leaves flying,
Gold and scarlet, gaily dying.
A squirrel ran off with a nut in his mouth,
And always, always, flying south,
Twittering, the birds went by,
Flickering sharp against the sky,
Some in great bows, some in wedges,
Some in bands with wavering edges;
Flocks and flocks were flying over
With the north wind for their drover.
“Flowers,” I said, “you’d better go,
Surely it’s coming on for snow,”–
They did not heed me, nor heed the birds,
Twittering thin, far-fallen words–
The others through of to-morrow, but they
Only remembered yesterday.

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: worried

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: productive

tozka

Welcome back to another Community Thursday! Original Community Thursday info here, if you're interested and want to participate, too.

Posted/Commented

Rec'd a Star Wars fic for fancake's January theme of "crack treated seriously"
Also voted for next month's theme in fancake

New-to-me Comms

vkotd -- Visual Kei of the day! A song-sharing comm focused on Japanese rock bands
fanmix_monthly -- recently-opened fanmix community
pkmnkinkmeme -- a new Pokemon Kink Meme comm!

Interesting Comm Posts

goals_on_dw is doing a slightly more formal Community Thursdays thing this year

tozka

The rain let up yesterday so I went into town to do some thrifting! I spotted some interesting knick-knaocks, like a tiny Limoges decorative bowl and some bone china stuff but nothing that wowed me (or that I wanted to haul around until I get back to the US, for that matter). I DID find a decent book selection, though! I got 5 books for £17/$22 USD, which I think is pretty good.

A stack of 5 books on a kitchen table

Titles:
1. Viva South America by Oliver Balch
2. Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving (comes with a soundtrack CD!)
3. Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
4. I Planted Trees by Richard St. Barber Baker
5. Peregrinations of a Pariah by Flora Tristan, translated by Jean Hawkes

I'm pretty sure I have at least one of these books as an ebook already, but whatever. Now I need to track down a CD player...

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Chichester, UK

conuly

Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem
written about something
important
or special
that's gonna happen
or already did.
Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.

Like what?! Lamont asks.
He's all slouched down in his seat.
I don't feel like writing about no occasion.

How about your birthday? Ms. Marcus says.
What about it? Just a birthday. Comes in June and it ain't
June, Lamont says. As a matter of fact,
he says, it's January and it's snowing.
Then his voice gets real low and he says
And when it's January and all cold like this
feels like June's a long, long ways away.

The whole class looks at Ms. Marcus.
Some of the kids are nodding.
Outside the sky looks like it's made out of metal
and the cold, cold air is rattling the windowpanes
and coming underneath them too.

I seen Lamont's coat.
It's gray and the sleeves are too short.
It's down but it looks like a lot of the feathers fell out
a long time ago.
Ms. Marcus got a nice coat.
It's down too but real puffy so
maybe when she's inside it
she can't even tell January from June.

Then write about January, Ms. Marcus says, that's
an occasion.
But she looks a little bit sad when she says it
Like she's sorry she ever brought the whole
occasional poem thing up.

I was gonna write about Mama's funeral
but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth
zapped all the ideas from my head.

I guess them arguing
on a Tuesday in January's an occasion
So I guess this is an occasional poem.

*************

Link

conuly

No real symptoms, but I'm a little stuffy and super sleepy.

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conuly

That is not a sentence I want to read at any time in the morning.

(In celsius terms, it's -10 and feels like death.)

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summercomfort

January 2026

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Page Summary

umadoshi - Weekly proof of life: reading, gaming (!), weather etc.
conuly - In other news, I've been watching Killjoys with E
minoanmiss - Tin Foil Chef
harpers_child - (no subject)
yhlee - emotional support spinning
conuly - Why didn't anybody tell me that She-Ra was going off Netflix in a month?
minoanmiss - There’s always a day
yhlee - drive-by in current reading
yhlee - drive-by interview link
conuly - I was reading a story in which a young character gets a new pair of glasses
brithistorian - ICE OUT of museums!
yhlee - extremely silly keyboard mod
osprey_archer - Late October
minoanmiss - Disturbing News
minoanmiss - A thing I did
tozka - community thursday (jan. 15-21)
tozka - book haul, january 2026
conuly - Occasional Poem by Jacqueline Woodson
conuly - I wonder if, despite my best efforts, I've managed to come down with a mild cold
conuly - Brr! "14F, feels like 7"

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Page generated Jan. 26th, 2026 01:06 am

Reading

Weekly proof of life: reading, gaming (!), weather etc.

In other news, I've been watching Killjoys with E

Tin Foil Chef

(no subject)

emotional support spinning

Why didn't anybody tell me that She-Ra was going off Netflix in a month?

There’s always a day

drive-by in current reading

drive-by interview link

I was reading a story in which a young character gets a new pair of glasses

ICE OUT of museums!

extremely silly keyboard mod

Late October

Disturbing News

A thing I did

community thursday (jan. 15-21)

Posted/Commented

New-to-me Comms

Interesting Comm Posts

book haul, january 2026

Occasional Poem by Jacqueline Woodson

I wonder if, despite my best efforts, I've managed to come down with a mild cold

Brr! "14F, feels like 7"

Profile

January 2026

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