"However much candy you want, the answer is yes."
Oct. 31st, 2025 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azurelunatic23 trick-or-treaters this year, likely due to rain and construction. The last four were after we had started picking up and bringing things inside, and in fact after we'd sorted the candy into Keep and Share. (The Share candy stays outside overnight for the late crew, then goes with Belovedest to work. We don't have particularly much trouble with raccoons.) In the last party, the one with the umbrella hat and some sort of Studio Ghibli makeup (white face, red eye triangles) was enchanted with the glow sticks and picked one of the very few blue ones.
This year's innovation was doing the Wizard of Oz + Dark Side of the Moon thing with (much less cleverly timed) Chaos Emergency Doof Broadcast (Which is 4 hours of very silly DJ work), some of the Halloween episodes, with Addams Family Values on mute (several times through). We got the inflammable tango to "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", and a few other silly confluences. I think this is one of the ones where precise timing doesn't help all that much, but it's great when it happens. By the time the show had run out of explicitly spooky songs, it got a little less entertaining.
Belovedest was Jigglypuff. I was a very tired Dulcie (wearing my own nightgown and some exhaustion makeup). I ordered the wrong crust on 2 out of 3 pizzas, and the 3rd one was gluten free.
This year's innovation was doing the Wizard of Oz + Dark Side of the Moon thing with (much less cleverly timed) Chaos Emergency Doof Broadcast (Which is 4 hours of very silly DJ work), some of the Halloween episodes, with Addams Family Values on mute (several times through). We got the inflammable tango to "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", and a few other silly confluences. I think this is one of the ones where precise timing doesn't help all that much, but it's great when it happens. By the time the show had run out of explicitly spooky songs, it got a little less entertaining.
Belovedest was Jigglypuff. I was a very tired Dulcie (wearing my own nightgown and some exhaustion makeup). I ordered the wrong crust on 2 out of 3 pizzas, and the 3rd one was gluten free.
if the stars were edible
Oct. 31st, 2025 02:51 pmursamajorhyounpark pinged me from BART this morning with the sad news that Fugakyu is closing, after 27 years. It feels like I've been going there forever, even though honestly the last time I went there was probably when we still lived in Boston. But I'm like 80% certain I've gone on dates there with all of my major boyfriends (if I dated you for at least a year, that's the defining line in my headcanon). A bazillion times with
hyounpark during our Boston era. Plenty of times with noghri, both while we were dating and then when we became friends. I thought I'd brought ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
kallmir2000 there, but I double-checked and it was Ginza I was thinking of. Which, admittedly, I'd also eaten sushi at with even more of the people I've dated, hahaha, including both Punsterboy and Choirboy! đ (Even though Ginza's been gone for well over a decade now.) And theconvictor and I had our Valentines' Day 2000 dinner at Fugakyu when we spent the weekend in Boston on a romantic getaway from campus, feeling ever so grownup, removing our shoes to sit at one of the traditional low tables in the fancy embedded booths. Fugakyu was even where I introduced multiple friends to sushi (
fes42, jennifer, david_grana, Adam); where my girlfriends took me after devastating breakups and meh second dates, because sushi would be followed up by ice cream at JP Licks, and then a visit to a certain little shop down the way (also long gone, alas; I'm hoping this recent rise in romance-specific bookstores brings an appropriate replacement to the neighborhood) because that was definitely better than moping over guys!And now it's closing, for "personal reasons."
Damn, am I gonna miss their pinetato (pineapple and sweet potato) maki. And the kinuta. And the hotate hokkayaki. And the giant boats of sushi that I would split with my friends. I know where to get sushi; honestly I may just pop down to our neighborhood sushi joint before the trick-or-treaters start arriving. But mostly, finding out that Fugakyu is closing next week is just making me miss everyone in Boston. Even knowing that many of the friends I mentioned don't live there anymore, like us.
Cats and business correspondence
Oct. 30th, 2025 10:29 pmgool_duckThe cats have a cat-litter box, in which they do their business.
Sometimes their staff does not clean it as often as they would prefer, and so they have an escalating system of notifying of their displeasure, thus:
0. The litter box has been cleared recently enough. A cat uses the litter box quietly, with no fuss.
1. The litter box is still useable, but the time to clean is approaching. A cat will use the litter box and scratch at the walls of the litter box, making noise, to notify that the box been has been used, and this requires attention.
2. The litter box has not been cleared in too long, and is only just usable. A cat will do their business in the box, but leave it uncovered, using the smell and visible leavings to indicate that urgent action is required.
3. The litter box has reached an unusable state. (*this is a failure mode: staff have been unwell/ messed up their sleep schedule/ miscommunicated whose turn it was) A cat does his business just outside the box, on the floor (which is a washable surface).
* * *
Yesterday we installed a new, larger cat-litter box, and the cats immediately understood and accepted it.
Today Egory demonstrated his understanding of synegdoche, thus:
He waited by the water-bowl to say he'd like it re-filled. Refilling the water bowl is part of my before bed routine, which includes clearing the cat litter.
He wanted the cat litter cleared, and he used part of the routine to indicate the whole routine.
I know this because usually if he just wants water he immediately comes and drinks from the bowl once it's re-filled, and he did not this time.
Sometimes their staff does not clean it as often as they would prefer, and so they have an escalating system of notifying of their displeasure, thus:
0. The litter box has been cleared recently enough. A cat uses the litter box quietly, with no fuss.
1. The litter box is still useable, but the time to clean is approaching. A cat will use the litter box and scratch at the walls of the litter box, making noise, to notify that the box been has been used, and this requires attention.
2. The litter box has not been cleared in too long, and is only just usable. A cat will do their business in the box, but leave it uncovered, using the smell and visible leavings to indicate that urgent action is required.
3. The litter box has reached an unusable state. (*this is a failure mode: staff have been unwell/ messed up their sleep schedule/ miscommunicated whose turn it was) A cat does his business just outside the box, on the floor (which is a washable surface).
* * *
Yesterday we installed a new, larger cat-litter box, and the cats immediately understood and accepted it.
Today Egory demonstrated his understanding of synegdoche, thus:
He waited by the water-bowl to say he'd like it re-filled. Refilling the water bowl is part of my before bed routine, which includes clearing the cat litter.
He wanted the cat litter cleared, and he used part of the routine to indicate the whole routine.
I know this because usually if he just wants water he immediately comes and drinks from the bowl once it's re-filled, and he did not this time.
"The Tadfield Satanic Nones." (Good Omens) G
Oct. 30th, 2025 05:46 pmlannamichaelsTitle: The Tadfield Satanic Nones.
Author:
lannamichaelsFandom: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld
Summary: Apart from the name, Warlock Dowling was an unlikely rock star.
( the best ever death metal band out of denton will in time both outpace and outlive you (hail satan!) )
One of Us
Oct. 29th, 2025 07:45 pmyourlibrarian1) I enjoyed watching Emma Thompson's arrival on Colbert's show, and also her rant about how AI keeps trying to change her writing. "âAnd so I end up just going, âI donât need you to f**king rewrite what Iâve just written! Will you f*** off? Just f*** off" "Colbert then jokingly suggested that Thompson show her computer the Academy Award she won for her screenwriting on the 1995 film Sense and Sensibility, which made her the only person to ever win an Oscar for both acting and writing."
2) Watched a Donna Summers' documentary, which was pretty uninformative. I knew little about her career so some of the info was new, but hardly anything was explored. ( Read more... )
3) Also saw the new 2025 documentary about LiveAid. I already knew a fair amount about it but given there were new interviews there were still some new bits. ( Read more... )
4) Had an afternoon with everything higgledy piggeldy. Got a call mid-afternoon from the leasing office that the utility company needed to make repairs to a transformer by our building. It would mean a 2-hour electricity cut off. So I got off the computer and decided to run the TV and finish exercises while I was waiting. But despite being told the power would be off in about 15 minutes, we still had power an hour later. My partner wasn't sure whether to stay late at work or come home. And if he did, we'd have to either eat snacks or wait for power to come back since we wouldn't want to open the fridge or freezer. ( Read more... )
5) A bit of hope that major money can be gotten out of politics, via a legal case. "Corporations exist with the express permission of the state in which they are incorporated. They are legal inventions, statutorily-created entities. They only have as much power as the states grant them.
That means the answer to Citizens United may be staring everyone straight in the face. After all, the statesâand this Supreme Court majority is for âstatesâ rightsâ after allâby definition have the final say over what corporations may do in their states. As noted by the Center for American Progress, which backs campaign finance law reforms, âCorporations are pure creatures of state law. And for more than two centuries, the Supreme Court has affirmed that states have virtually unlimited authority to modify and withdraw the powers they grant to their corporations.â
Why couldnât that authority include never granting corporations the power to spend money on political contributions in the first place?"
2) Watched a Donna Summers' documentary, which was pretty uninformative. I knew little about her career so some of the info was new, but hardly anything was explored. ( Read more... )
3) Also saw the new 2025 documentary about LiveAid. I already knew a fair amount about it but given there were new interviews there were still some new bits. ( Read more... )
4) Had an afternoon with everything higgledy piggeldy. Got a call mid-afternoon from the leasing office that the utility company needed to make repairs to a transformer by our building. It would mean a 2-hour electricity cut off. So I got off the computer and decided to run the TV and finish exercises while I was waiting. But despite being told the power would be off in about 15 minutes, we still had power an hour later. My partner wasn't sure whether to stay late at work or come home. And if he did, we'd have to either eat snacks or wait for power to come back since we wouldn't want to open the fridge or freezer. ( Read more... )
5) A bit of hope that major money can be gotten out of politics, via a legal case. "Corporations exist with the express permission of the state in which they are incorporated. They are legal inventions, statutorily-created entities. They only have as much power as the states grant them.
That means the answer to Citizens United may be staring everyone straight in the face. After all, the statesâand this Supreme Court majority is for âstatesâ rightsâ after allâby definition have the final say over what corporations may do in their states. As noted by the Center for American Progress, which backs campaign finance law reforms, âCorporations are pure creatures of state law. And for more than two centuries, the Supreme Court has affirmed that states have virtually unlimited authority to modify and withdraw the powers they grant to their corporations.â
Why couldnât that authority include never granting corporations the power to spend money on political contributions in the first place?"
Poll #33772 Kudos Footer-547
This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 8
Want to leave a Kudos?
No, you won't remember it, write it down
Oct. 29th, 2025 06:50 pmlannamichaelsOn Sunday, I heard Hotel California on the radio and suddenly knew it would be a great fanvid and could see it all unfold beautifully in my head. I was going to write it down but decided against it.
Today I'm like "okay I am not a vidder but maybe I could do that in drabble form" and CANNOT REMEMBER WHICH FANDOM IT WAS.
:(
guess I may go with "what's the funniest thing" (Jane Austen).
EDIT: I remember! I remember! Complaining works! ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.
Seven Deadly Sins of reading
Oct. 29th, 2025 08:53 amwychwoodI like the book meme that is going around - I saw it first on naraht's journal, but it seems to be spreading vigorously!
Lust, books I want to read for their cover:
I don't think there's anything at the moment, but I first read Flying Dutch by Tom Holt because of the Josh Kirby cover! Does that count?
Pride, challenging books I've finished:
Speaking purely personally, finishing Arcadia by Iain Pears was a real achievement, although I've no idea why I found it so impossible a read. I've read some books that would probably fall under the popular definition, but I feel like it doesn't count if I was reading them for fun! Maybe St Augustine's City of God; that did feel like a real achievement to get through, it's so enormous.
Gluttony, books I've read more than once:
I mean. Even these days roughly 40% of my reading is re-reading, and growing up it was a lot higher than that! I don't understand people who never re-read. Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons can stand for the vast number.
Sloth, books on my to-read list the longest:
lol where to start. I acquired Consilience by Edward O Wilson in 2009, I think that may be the oldest physically sitting on my to-read shelves.
Greed, books I own multiple editions of:
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan - I have a Penguin Classics copy, a giant hardback edition with illustrations that looks rather William-Blake-esque, and a tiny pocket hardback that used to live permanently in my rucksack pocket. Oh, and an ebook from Project Gutenberg.
I also have a few dozen audiobooks that duplicate paper or ebooks I already had, and an increasing number of ebooks duplicating paper I already had. Mostly I get one format or the other, but I've picked up quite a few cheap ebooks of favourites where I don't want to get rid of the original, or where I have the whole series in paper and don't want to give away the one or two I have in ebook, etc... I suspect I will gradually prune things down over time.
Notably I'm up to nearly 50 Chalet School ebooks now! But I have spent nearly forty years accumulating my paper set, and it's going to take a while before I'm ready to give them up. Greed indeed.
Oh, and five? six? Bibles? One in German. Plus a couple of New Testaments including one in Greek (I don't even read Greek, it was just so beautiful!).
Wrath, books I despised:
I'm sure there are a ton of better choices that will come to me after I post this, but such is life. I looked through my "Product of its Time" booklog awards and found some promising candidates, but then I remembered Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning, which left me with the sort of loathing that feels appropriate for this category. It's not that it was rubbish, because those mostly aren't worth despising really, it's that it was just persistently unpleasant in a gloating kind of way that left me wanting a shower. Ugh.
Envy, books I want to live in:
Relatively few, without a guarantee of being one of the lucky ones! Graydon Saunders' Commonweal books are pretty invested in everyone getting an equal chance, more or less, so that might not be too bad as long as I could be sure of being in the Commonweal and not one of Reems' slaves or something.
Otherwise mostly looking at positive high-tech futures, to be sure of having access to medication and/or medical treatment for my numerous chronic health conditions! Maybe Bujold's Vorkosigan saga? I'd like Beta, I think. But again, I could end up on Jackson's Whole, and that would not end well for me. Maybe a Star Trek novel, that universe is probably as safe as anywhere I can find.
naraht's journal, but it seems to be spreading vigorously!Lust, books I want to read for their cover:
I don't think there's anything at the moment, but I first read Flying Dutch by Tom Holt because of the Josh Kirby cover! Does that count?
Pride, challenging books I've finished:
Speaking purely personally, finishing Arcadia by Iain Pears was a real achievement, although I've no idea why I found it so impossible a read. I've read some books that would probably fall under the popular definition, but I feel like it doesn't count if I was reading them for fun! Maybe St Augustine's City of God; that did feel like a real achievement to get through, it's so enormous.
Gluttony, books I've read more than once:
I mean. Even these days roughly 40% of my reading is re-reading, and growing up it was a lot higher than that! I don't understand people who never re-read. Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons can stand for the vast number.
Sloth, books on my to-read list the longest:
lol where to start. I acquired Consilience by Edward O Wilson in 2009, I think that may be the oldest physically sitting on my to-read shelves.
Greed, books I own multiple editions of:
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan - I have a Penguin Classics copy, a giant hardback edition with illustrations that looks rather William-Blake-esque, and a tiny pocket hardback that used to live permanently in my rucksack pocket. Oh, and an ebook from Project Gutenberg.
I also have a few dozen audiobooks that duplicate paper or ebooks I already had, and an increasing number of ebooks duplicating paper I already had. Mostly I get one format or the other, but I've picked up quite a few cheap ebooks of favourites where I don't want to get rid of the original, or where I have the whole series in paper and don't want to give away the one or two I have in ebook, etc... I suspect I will gradually prune things down over time.
Notably I'm up to nearly 50 Chalet School ebooks now! But I have spent nearly forty years accumulating my paper set, and it's going to take a while before I'm ready to give them up. Greed indeed.
Oh, and five? six? Bibles? One in German. Plus a couple of New Testaments including one in Greek (I don't even read Greek, it was just so beautiful!).
Wrath, books I despised:
I'm sure there are a ton of better choices that will come to me after I post this, but such is life. I looked through my "Product of its Time" booklog awards and found some promising candidates, but then I remembered Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning, which left me with the sort of loathing that feels appropriate for this category. It's not that it was rubbish, because those mostly aren't worth despising really, it's that it was just persistently unpleasant in a gloating kind of way that left me wanting a shower. Ugh.
Envy, books I want to live in:
Relatively few, without a guarantee of being one of the lucky ones! Graydon Saunders' Commonweal books are pretty invested in everyone getting an equal chance, more or less, so that might not be too bad as long as I could be sure of being in the Commonweal and not one of Reems' slaves or something.
Otherwise mostly looking at positive high-tech futures, to be sure of having access to medication and/or medical treatment for my numerous chronic health conditions! Maybe Bujold's Vorkosigan saga? I'd like Beta, I think. But again, I could end up on Jackson's Whole, and that would not end well for me. Maybe a Star Trek novel, that universe is probably as safe as anywhere I can find.
Peak color in MI
Oct. 29th, 2025 09:49 ambranchandrootMany things continue to be awful, but it's peak color this week, and my bus ride is during sunrise, so I've gotten to have a color tour every morning and watch the sun slowly light up the trees so even the ones that are still green look gold.
It's an ember-colored fall this year, less bright than some because late summer was so dry, but the maples are still bringing the reds and oranges, the pears have turned deep burgundy, and the oaks are shading from yellow into copper and dark red. The oldest, strongest locust trees still have a hold of their golden leaves, and the young ginko trees that the city has started planting recently have all joined in, exuberantly gold from top to bottom. The sumac that lives in the roadside swales is a rich, dark red and the burning bush may be a sneaking invasive but it reliably turns rose red at this season. You can tell there was drought this year; many trees have scorched and curled leaves and can only turn dusky yellow or even brown. But there's still color, and it's still beautiful, and we're still here.
It's an ember-colored fall this year, less bright than some because late summer was so dry, but the maples are still bringing the reds and oranges, the pears have turned deep burgundy, and the oaks are shading from yellow into copper and dark red. The oldest, strongest locust trees still have a hold of their golden leaves, and the young ginko trees that the city has started planting recently have all joined in, exuberantly gold from top to bottom. The sumac that lives in the roadside swales is a rich, dark red and the burning bush may be a sneaking invasive but it reliably turns rose red at this season. You can tell there was drought this year; many trees have scorched and curled leaves and can only turn dusky yellow or even brown. But there's still color, and it's still beautiful, and we're still here.
Milestone
Oct. 28th, 2025 06:25 pmazurelunaticVideo appointment with chemotherapist today. I'm done with immunotherapy! The scan says I've been stable.
I still have:
* bone strengthening (not marrow encouraging) med every 12 weeks, infused
* Scans every 3 months
So that means a trip or two to the cancer center every 3 months, although if they keep it at 3 months for the one and 12 weeks for the other, they may fall out of sync.
I should probably celebrate this?
I still have:
* bone strengthening (not marrow encouraging) med every 12 weeks, infused
* Scans every 3 months
So that means a trip or two to the cancer center every 3 months, although if they keep it at 3 months for the one and 12 weeks for the other, they may fall out of sync.
I should probably celebrate this?
Fic title meme
Oct. 29th, 2025 12:21 amtrobadoraFrom all around my flist, last seen at facethestrange's:
How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, 'A' and 'The' do not count for 'A' and 'T'.
I picked my favourite title for each letter, not necessarily my favourite fic:
A - Absent Heart (But My Body is Here)
B - A Bitter, Better Truth
C - A Cruelty of Harpies
D - Darkness Spilled Before Our Bed
E - Echoes Woven Into Light
F - Farshalah'kiah for the Modern Orion Woman
G - Glass on the Ground
H - Hindsight From the Dinner Table
I - In This Fading Hour
J - none
K - Kreisverkehr
L - Listen (it's late, it's late, but listen)
M - Make Answer to the Clock
N - Not To Be Repeated
O - Out of the Water
P - Pull/Recoil
Q - Quiet Bower
R - R'lyeh Is Not an Empty House
S - Summer's Turns
T - A Thread as Red as Blood
U - (un)forced, (un)happy
V - Volcano Day
W - Why Should You Linger
X - none
Y - none
Z - Zone F: Fandom Primer
You can tell I have a preference for a certain style of title, LOL!
The most represented fandom here is, unsurprisingly, Guardian (with 6 titles); second is Griimm with 3. My most-written fandom (Doctor Who) only has 2 on this list; either my title preferences have changed or Guardian inspires me for better titles. *g*
And the missing X and Y are probably not surprising, but I didn't expect J! I guess I'll have to do something about that at some point ... *g*
facethestrange's:How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, 'A' and 'The' do not count for 'A' and 'T'.
I picked my favourite title for each letter, not necessarily my favourite fic:
A - Absent Heart (But My Body is Here)
B - A Bitter, Better Truth
C - A Cruelty of Harpies
D - Darkness Spilled Before Our Bed
E - Echoes Woven Into Light
F - Farshalah'kiah for the Modern Orion Woman
G - Glass on the Ground
H - Hindsight From the Dinner Table
I - In This Fading Hour
J - none
K - Kreisverkehr
L - Listen (it's late, it's late, but listen)
M - Make Answer to the Clock
N - Not To Be Repeated
O - Out of the Water
P - Pull/Recoil
Q - Quiet Bower
R - R'lyeh Is Not an Empty House
S - Summer's Turns
T - A Thread as Red as Blood
U - (un)forced, (un)happy
V - Volcano Day
W - Why Should You Linger
X - none
Y - none
Z - Zone F: Fandom Primer
You can tell I have a preference for a certain style of title, LOL!
The most represented fandom here is, unsurprisingly, Guardian (with 6 titles); second is Griimm with 3. My most-written fandom (Doctor Who) only has 2 on this list; either my title preferences have changed or Guardian inspires me for better titles. *g*
And the missing X and Y are probably not surprising, but I didn't expect J! I guess I'll have to do something about that at some point ... *g*
FIC: scale to feather, skin to skin (Guardian: Ya Qing/Zhu Hong) [M]
Oct. 28th, 2025 11:43 pmtrobadoraI just realised I never posted this here - written for gavilan in this year's ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
guardian_wishlist:
scale to feather, skin to skin (997 words)
Fandom: éé | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Mature
Relationships: Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, Zhu Hong & Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Zhu Hong, Ya Qing
Content tags: Yashou transformation, non-human sex, Post-Canon, Post-Fix-It, Enemies to Lovers, background implied Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Summary: Ya Qing, half-transformed, had feathers down the side and back of her neck. They covered her shoulders and arms, curving along the sides of her bare breasts.
gavilan in this year's guardian_wishlist:scale to feather, skin to skin (997 words)
Fandom: éé | Guardian (TV 2018)
Rating: Mature
Relationships: Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, Zhu Hong & Zhao Yunlan
Characters: Zhu Hong, Ya Qing
Content tags: Yashou transformation, non-human sex, Post-Canon, Post-Fix-It, Enemies to Lovers, background implied Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Summary: Ya Qing, half-transformed, had feathers down the side and back of her neck. They covered her shoulders and arms, curving along the sides of her bare breasts.
Seven Deadly Sins of Reading
Oct. 26th, 2025 08:36 pmnarahtVia foxmoth, this is a brilliant meme but also a challenging one! With a certain degree of "oh well, I guess that one does fit..."
Lust, books I want to read for their cover:
- Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere (OK I have read it but I would have picked it up just for the cover, UK edn)
- Andrew Porter, The Imagined Life
- Benjamin Wood, Seascraper
Pride, challenging books I've finished:
- Uwe Johnson, Anniversaries
- Laszlo Krasnahorkai, War and War
- JRR Tolkien, Hobbitinn (The Hobbit in Icelandic)
Gluttony, books I've read more than once:
- Alaistair Reynolds, Redemption Ark
- Sergei and Marina Dyachenko, Vita Nostra
- Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air (I like reading this on airplanes, God help me)
Sloth, books on my to-read list the longest:
- David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite
- Milorad PaviÄ, Dictionary of the Khazars
- Gabriel GarcĂa MĂĄrquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Greed, books I own multiple editions of:
- Mary Renault, Return to Night
- (...plus various books in multiple languages but I think that's the only one with multiple editions in English)
Wrath, books I despised:
- RF Huang, Babel
- Don DeLillo, Underworld (I want so much to like this but I don't)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Envy, books I want to live in:
- My own
foxmoth, this is a brilliant meme but also a challenging one! With a certain degree of "oh well, I guess that one does fit..."Lust, books I want to read for their cover:
- Taylor Jenkins Reid, Atmosphere (OK I have read it but I would have picked it up just for the cover, UK edn)
- Andrew Porter, The Imagined Life
- Benjamin Wood, Seascraper
Pride, challenging books I've finished:
- Uwe Johnson, Anniversaries
- Laszlo Krasnahorkai, War and War
- JRR Tolkien, Hobbitinn (The Hobbit in Icelandic)
Gluttony, books I've read more than once:
- Alaistair Reynolds, Redemption Ark
- Sergei and Marina Dyachenko, Vita Nostra
- Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air (I like reading this on airplanes, God help me)
Sloth, books on my to-read list the longest:
- David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite
- Milorad PaviÄ, Dictionary of the Khazars
- Gabriel GarcĂa MĂĄrquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Greed, books I own multiple editions of:
- Mary Renault, Return to Night
- (...plus various books in multiple languages but I think that's the only one with multiple editions in English)
Wrath, books I despised:
- RF Huang, Babel
- Don DeLillo, Underworld (I want so much to like this but I don't)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Envy, books I want to live in:
- My own
may not get as much reading done as i was planning though...
Oct. 26th, 2025 07:15 pmwychwoodI feel like I'm moving into zombie mode right now. Hopefully that will help me fall asleep on time??
I had a lovely weekend, though. The Augustinian no-longer-youths were as delightful as ever, we had some interesting talks, it felt like the time absolutely zoomed past while at the same time not all that much happened... and it's just never long enough. We talked in the end-of-gathering session about how nice it would be if there were more of these, maybe in different places, and then all of us who had any involvement in planning this one were like "but who is going to do it" because even with half-a-dozen people working on what is deliberately a very low-key event, it was pretty exhausting. But it WOULD be nice.
One of the parishioners who came along this year is someone I've known for probably thirty-five years, whose kids were very much in my peer group in the parish, and it was really good to catch up with her; she has thirteen grandchildren now! Although she did have six children, five of whom have children, so that's not quite as unreasonable as it sounds. I haven't seen most of them since probably the mid-nineties, so it's a bit disconcerting to find that they're married with three children, but that is how it goes.
Now I'm at Mum's; I've set up my work station (where I am currently typing this while she blocks crochet squares on the other half of Dad's table) and unpacked my belongings and generally done my best to make ready for the week. We have also come to a detente where I have agreed to spend more time chatting with her if she turns the TV off, or at least mutes it while I'm in there. I 100% cannot filter out "ambient" TV (a cause of suffering to me in waiting rooms!) because my attention gets yanked to it, over and over. I think it's probably because I don't watch much of it, so I haven't learned to ignore it, but either way it's very off-putting. I have run away now, though; there is only so much socialising I can handle in a day, and between the Augustinians this morning and multiple hours chatting with her already, I am pretty much tapped out.
I had a lovely weekend, though. The Augustinian no-longer-youths were as delightful as ever, we had some interesting talks, it felt like the time absolutely zoomed past while at the same time not all that much happened... and it's just never long enough. We talked in the end-of-gathering session about how nice it would be if there were more of these, maybe in different places, and then all of us who had any involvement in planning this one were like "but who is going to do it" because even with half-a-dozen people working on what is deliberately a very low-key event, it was pretty exhausting. But it WOULD be nice.
One of the parishioners who came along this year is someone I've known for probably thirty-five years, whose kids were very much in my peer group in the parish, and it was really good to catch up with her; she has thirteen grandchildren now! Although she did have six children, five of whom have children, so that's not quite as unreasonable as it sounds. I haven't seen most of them since probably the mid-nineties, so it's a bit disconcerting to find that they're married with three children, but that is how it goes.
Now I'm at Mum's; I've set up my work station (where I am currently typing this while she blocks crochet squares on the other half of Dad's table) and unpacked my belongings and generally done my best to make ready for the week. We have also come to a detente where I have agreed to spend more time chatting with her if she turns the TV off, or at least mutes it while I'm in there. I 100% cannot filter out "ambient" TV (a cause of suffering to me in waiting rooms!) because my attention gets yanked to it, over and over. I think it's probably because I don't watch much of it, so I haven't learned to ignore it, but either way it's very off-putting. I have run away now, though; there is only so much socialising I can handle in a day, and between the Augustinians this morning and multiple hours chatting with her already, I am pretty much tapped out.