This is more partial even than usual, because I've had some download problems that I've since fixed. But we can let that filter out to the second quarter; time waits for etc. etc.

This Is Not a Love Poem, Alexandra Dawson (Reckoning)

I Met You On the Train, J. R. Dawson (Uncanny)

The Doorkeepers, A. T. Greenblatt (Uncanny)

Unsettled Nature, Jordan Kurella (Apex)

Straw Gold, Mari Ness (Small Wonders)

No Kings/No Soldiers, A.M. Tuomala (Uncanny)

Blade Through the Heart, Carrie Vaughn (Reactor)

Antediluvian, Rem Wigmore (Reckoning)

cosmolinguist

I'm reading, and really enjoying, Annalee Newitz's Four Lost Cities.

I'm currently reading about Pompeii, and I was struck by the mention of about how little was recorded about that volcanic eruption and the cities that were "lost" in its aftermath.

I thought of how conspicuously absent our society's cultural response to the covid pandemic has been, even before Newitz themself drew an explicit parallel with the Spanish flu epidemic which apparently also had a similar effect.

I was struck by this because just this morning, I was in a meeting about an upcoming Mental Health Awareness Week event at work. I had to join a bit late so I don't know the context but as I joined, someone newish to my org -- which covers the whole country so we're mostly hybrid/remote -- said that starting this job was hard for me because going back to working from home was something he hadn't done "since covid." #CovidIsNotOver, of course. (I felt some kind of way listening to someone talk as if they were triggered by an event that is still ongoing if you ask me.) But he's totally right about how we haven't really addressed it in any meaningful way -- the lack of pragmatic mitigations almost requires us to participate in this cognitive dissonance of referring to the pandemic in the past tense when it's only the lockdowns, the testing, the mask mandates, the period of taking it as seriously as it warrants, which is past.

I was immediately reminded of that Audrey Watters piece I linked to the other day, about grief that isn't observed. If she's right that "it matters that GPT was released during the COVID pandemic (and ChatGPT shortly 'after')," (and how I appreciate the scare-quotes around "after" there!), this is a meaning that's lost if we don't talk about the covid pandemic.

I think covid is intimately linked to changes in transport infrastructure and the built environment that make my job harder -- hastily-enacted legislation to allow more tables and chairs on pavements means more obstacles that never had to undergo an Equality Impact Assessment; "pop-up" cycle lanes led to lasting trends in active travel infrastructure that still deprioritize pedestrians; e-scooters were seen as more useful in a world where people were discouraged to go anywhere but particularly to use public transport; I could go on -- and the further that lockdowns and other facets of pandemic mitigations get, the harder it is for me to address those things properly.

It's interesting to see what feels like such a modern ill also taking place as long ago as Pompeii, in as different a culture as that Roman one was. Is it such a fundamental human thing to just block out the bad times so thoroughly? I can't help but think we can do much better to look after ourselves, individually and as collective societies.

cosmolinguist

A couple of days ago, I determined that my webcam wasn't working on my laptop, for calls with my parents, or on my work laptop.

D kindly took it away the other day, and diagnosed it as Dead. He also reminded me we had one that I could use for work but doesn't work on Linux -- something I'd entirely forgotten about; I think I'd conflated it with the other webcam which had stopped working entirely...

He also sourced a replacement, sent me a link. Which I said was terribly sweet of him but I didn't really need, just for my parents when I could shuffle things around and just use the camera on the laptop. But it arrived the next day; he'd bought it for me anyway. "Thirty quid to keep your parents happen seems worth it," he said. Awww.

So, tonight I was so looking forward to the call with my parents starting with something other than my mom complaining that she can't see me.

Instead, the first thing she said when my camera pops on was "You're getting those deep wrinkles in your forehead too, like Grandma [my mom's own mother]."

Which a) only when I frown, or raise my eyebrows [so maybe this is the only way my parents will ever see me, lol] b) my grandma was a badass, so I hardly mind looking like her! c) to age is to live!

But most of all: she's treating me in a way she'd consider horrible bad manners if I behaved this way toward anyone.

Again. (A story I'm fond of trotting out is the time we were in a restaurant, my appetizer arrived, she looked disgusted at it and asked me warily what that was; I said "butternut squash soup" and she said "oh yuck!" A thing I'd have been told off for if I'd reacted that way to someone else's food that I both didn't have to and shouldn't have eaten!)

Can't believe D paid £30 for my appearance to be insulted like this, heh. It's a fancy webcam too; he said he got "only" 720p rather than the £50 1080p, and I was thinking this is already too big a number, I don't want my parents to see me in high definition (unfortunately for me, I said this as "that's too many p for my face!" which made D snigger because his mind is always in the gutter!). it's very zoomed-in too, which is unsettling for me too since I have to have my monitor so close to me. It's been such a long time since Mom commented on my facial hair and I'd like that to become a much longer time, an unbroken streak. She's gonna say whatever she wants as soon as she (thinks that she) is off-mic; all I ask is for her to be polite to my face!

jadelennox

After Ny's memorial I felt like a complete awkward pony; I talked myself down from an anxiety spiral with the very jadelennox-branded pep talk of, basically, "Stop being so damn full of yourself, kid, literally nobody is going to notice or remember how bad you were at personing in a room full of grieving people in shock, many of whom primarily know each other online. Nobody was looking at you."

Anyway I have heard from three different people, one of whom I see in person regularly, that I either didn't see them at all when they tried to talk to me, or I saw them and talked to them like they were strangers.

Honestly I think this is an achievement. Being so Not At My Best I was noticeably out of it even in a room full of people Not At Their Best. Awkward pony gold star!

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3223/

Depending what corners of the internet you hang out on, 'regular' may at times awkwardly coexist with 'sexy.'

https://xkcd.com/3223/

muninnhuginn

I don't often point out stuff I've read outside of the monthly list, but I found this article, I have stage four cancer – there will be no cure, but death isn’t necessarily imminent: this is how it feels to live in the long middle, resonated. (Apart from the faith as succour/loss of faith bit: lazy unbelief renders that moot). I find that invisibility of cancer as a chronic illness quite tough. The mismatch between apparent restored good health and the ongoing existence of treatment, testing, four-spoons-a-day energy is difficult to negotiate: there's a great desire to go along with folk's assumptions about one's wellness, to not remind folk of the ongoing situation. And that's tough for everyone, because once in a while the facts do have to be reiterated--and it's like breaking the bad news all over again.
Also, what is it with folk objecting to my belief in my own prognosis, as if accepting, living the maintenance treatment is something they can reject on my behalf? Fear, of course, but it's immensely annoying.
But, anyway, a better summation of how I am, where I'm at, than I could've done myself. And useful as I cosider whether to resign earlier in the year, rather than hold out to the end of the year and my 60th.

Current Mood: Seen

danah_boyd_feed

Posted by zephoria

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2026/03/23/pre-order-data-are-made-not-found.html

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/?p=7053

There’s something uniquely demoralizing about editing and editing and editing a book manuscript. The words all start to blur together and you start thinking that every sentence is crap, no one will ever want to read this, why bother completing the book. I was definitely in this state. And then… my publisher sent me the book cover and I squealed for joy at just how lovely it is. And it gave me hope. Check out this beauty:

And yes… that’s a wobbly Jenga tower comprised of pieces made from census documentation cuz one of the core arguments in the book is that we’re living in a world of “Jenga Politics” where different actors are pulling out pieces of our administrative infrastructure and putting pressure on top. Civil servants are exhausted, but they’re trying to keep the tower from falling.

And now that I’ve seen the beautiful cover, I can’t wait for you to read this book! And to come celebrate with me! I am starting to build a book tour so hopefully I will come to a city near you. But, in the meantime, here are some of the fun things I get to share:

My book won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize! Thank you to the kind people at Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University for giving me wind beneath my wings!
Pre-Order the book! And if you order it from the University of Chicago Press website, you can save 30% by using the code UCPNEW. But feel free to order from your local bookstore or wherever else you want!
DC folks: Save the Date (9/25)! I am ecstatic that Politics & Prose is hosting me at their Wharf venue on September 25 at 7PM (the day after the book goes on sale!). I hope lots of folks will come out to celebrate! There will be books available! And a signing!
Virtual Folks: On the eve of the book launch (9/23), Dan Bouk and I will discuss the book in a virtual event hosted by Data & Society. More info on that will come shortly, but make sure to sign up to the D&S newsletter!

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2026/03/23/pre-order-data-are-made-not-found.html

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/?p=7053

ofearthandstars

From this week's

thefridayfive:

1. What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?
At the time (maybe 1999/2000?), I was working for an environmental nonprofit, and a coworker introduced me to the Livejournal site. I think they might have regretted it, as I was going through a stage of re-examining every belief I had ever been taught regarding religion, spirituality, sexuality, etc., and I wrote all the time. I changed journals there at least twice (maybe more), but settled as beuatyofgrey. I moved to DW not long after the Russian acquisition of LJ, and have undergone a few different variations here. I used to cross-post a lot, but I found the ever-changing format of the LJ site and the mods that made it more, well, modern internet...really no longer felt right.

2. How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?
I'm subscribed to 39 DW communities, though the majority of them are very quiet. I haven't logged into my old LJ account in a very long time - my last visit there was simply to download and collect digital photos I had uploaded, which included many old grainy photos of my kids in their youth. I miss the old LJ communities vegan_cooking and fatshionista, though.

3. Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?
I enjoy awesomeers and agonyaunt, one of which provides encouragement, the other which provides advice (though I think sometimes I would never offer my own life up for examination by agonyaunt, because while the advice is sometimes quite lovely it also comes from our own limited understandings of the circumstances and decisions that led letter-writers to where they are.)

4. How did you pick your user name?
*sigh* It actually came from a quote by Neil Degrasse Tyson, which I used to have in a sidebox on my page before he was accused of sexual assault and before it became apparent that he is really quite full of himself. The quote was:

“The knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on earth - the atoms that make up the human body, are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars- the high mass ones among them- went unstable in their later years- they collapsed and then exploded- scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy- guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems- stars with orbiting planets. And those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. So that when I look up at the night sky, and I know that yes we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up- many people feel small, cause their small and the universe is big. But I feel big because my atoms came from those stars.”

5. If you could change your user name, would you?
Every once in a while I think about changing back to a temporary name that I used for fiction and poetry writing, but because I have already renamed my journal once, I think I am unable to rename again and it is impossible to revert to the prior name. But that's okay! I have frequently moved my journal and contents and identity throughout my life because I am constantly changing as a human, and my understanding of life and where I am at changes as well. For now, ofearthandstars still fits.

andrewducker

It always surprises me that Boots isn't open until 9am. You would have thought that there'd be enough people wanting to pick up painkillers or similar on the way in to work.

thelastwordonnothing_feed

Posted by Sarah Gilman

https://lastwordonnothing.com/2026/03/23/the-harrier/?pk_campaign=feed&pk_kwd=the-harrier

https://lastwordonnothing.com/?p=38441

If you liked this post, I hope you’ll consider becoming a subscriber to Terra Affirma, the weeklyish newsletter where I publish my comics poems and illustrated essays in hopes of building a new home for the illustrated column of the same name that I used to write and paint for YES! Magazine. Paid subscribers help make these interdisciplinary creations possible, and receive exclusive early access to new work each month.

The post The Harrier appeared first on The Last Word On Nothing.

https://lastwordonnothing.com/2026/03/23/the-harrier/?pk_campaign=feed&pk_kwd=the-harrier

https://lastwordonnothing.com/?p=38441

siderea

Boston locals! Blue Heron, an acapella early music ensemble, is throwing a three-day shindig to celebrate Guillaume de Machaut (died 1377), May 1-3, mostly involving talks about Machaut's works, talks about his lyrics, talks about the illuminations in the manuscripts his works come from, concerts of his music, and also a little ars subtilior tacked on the end just because.

More info https://www.blueheron.org/machaut-weekend/

Affordability note: They have a free ticket option as part of the "Card to Culture program" for people with EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare(!) cards*, and a discounted "low cost" option.

Of note, the "Opening Festivities: Keynote, Performance & Sing-Along" on Friday night includes (emphasis mine):

a keynote talk by one of the world’s leading scholars of 14th-century music, Anne Stone (CUNY Graduate Center), performances of pieces in several of the genres represented in Machaut’s oeuvre, and a sing-along of the Kyrie from the Messe de Nostre Dame.

Which: huh. Huh. The Kyrie, huh? Wow. Now that is certainly a choice. I commend their bravery. Were I in better health, I would consider showing up just to be in on the shenanigans.

If you're curious what the Kyrie from Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame sounds and looks like, here you go.

* There is no separate ConnectorCare card like there is for MassHealth. They mean your regular insurance card, which if it's a ConnectorCare plan should say so on it, or so the Mass Cultural Council, whose program it is, thinks.

siderea

The YouTube algorithm pseudorandomly served me this, thereby answering the question I'd had on a distant back burner forever, "Hey, didn't I hear something about colored cotton cultivars once upon a time? Cotton that you didn't need to dye? Like back in the 90s?"

If you are a fellow fiber freak or interested in agriculture or organic crops or the underappreciated problem of sustainable clothing production, you may find this as fascinating as I did:

2026 Mar 7: Good Yarn Bad Knits [goodyarnbadknits YT]: "The Yarn That Almost Saved The World"

Watch on YouTube

jesse_the_k

We were delighted by Shadow’s response to his first visitors last night. We kept him crated until they’d seated themselves ready to watch the first two eps of Slings & Arrows. He made not a peep when they arrived nor during our typically uproarious dinner. Once we let him out of the crate, he observed them closely. One guest had recently enjoyed a hot-and-sour sauce on her egg roll. She invited him closer and he licked her hands! He permitted the other to pet his back. He curled up in his bed (immediately below the TV) and peacefully admired the assembled multitude.

Early this AM MyGuy placed one of Shadow’s beds on my side of our bed. Around 6AM he tip tip tap tipped into the bedroom and curled up in it, keeping me company for 45 minutes.

He was in the breezeway with MyGuy 20 minutes ago, having just come back from his evening constitutional. Just as his lead was unhooked, the leonine March wind blew open the door to the backyard. Shadow was out like a shot. MyGuy called him back, but he kept backing up. At last, MyGuy leaned on the garage holding the door open, and Shadow scooted right back in to the breezeway.

The wisdom around rescues is a rule of 3: 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to learn routines, and 3 months to feel fully at home. We’re on track.

(Got to get some Shadow icons!)

elainegrey

Bruno was no where to be found on Saturday morning, worrying me, and acting as a small delay on my plan to be out before it got too warm. When Christine got up, we closed Carrie off and Marlowe out, and hunted. On the fourth or fifth check under the bed he was there. He is such a shadow. He seemed much more normal this morning. We've let Marlowe have more access to him, but maybe he needs the next few nights to be closed off.

I made a great deal of progress on the raised beds on Saturday. The French drain is under the 3x6 bed, the gravel screened off with hardware cloth and then either pea gravel (where visible) or reused tiny gravel (found when digging out the area) over the screen. The 3x6 bed is in place, mostly level, mostly back filled on the outside and filling begun on the inside. (This morning i assembled the two halves of the 4x8 bed. I want just halves to help in managing as i continue to clear out the foundation and dig the French drain that will also act as a reservoir. Today was too bleeping warm for digging.)

I found a Dekay's brown snake and a marbled salamander: they eat earthworms and slugs so, yay, healthy ecosystem? Also found some earthworms but left them to the work they were at. I do need to relocate some to the worm bins.

Also on Saturday, we had lunch with my sister's family and Dad. Christine said she wasn't coming and i was both understanding of some reasons: my dad can be awkward and indeed didn't wear his hearing aid and misgendered C at a moment when he was distracted and speaking to me. I think i was the only one to hear. I was also frustrated -- because i think she needs connections and we don't have many. She ended up coming, and i don't think it was too hard on her. She hates the family photos, and this time i had the sense to suggest SHE take the photo. I hope i can remember that in the future.

Today i was tired and achy. I've tried setting up some tools to help me with my intentions. One is a ten minute focus tool that reminds me every ten minutes to stay on focus, with a half way, a 2 minutes remaining, and a 1 minute remaining marks. I really don't have a good sense of ten minutes, i found as i used those. I also had another for less focus for another ten minute time block with just the half way, a 2 minutes remaining, and a 1 minute remaining marks. I decided i wanted to buy a new tea infuser because mine, well over ten years old, has become encrusted with tea residue, reducing the flow through the nylon mesh. I used the last 5 minutes of the ten minute focus there, and it definitely helped me refrain from getting distracted.

Continued thinking about the time that passes that isn't intentional has added a few more classifiers for a list of avoidance, escape, distraction, urgent-unplanned (not quite an emergency). I still need to find how to refuel myself, rest. I've tried resting today, too.

musesfool

After waiting as they spent a long, slow afternoon in the oven, I just went to town on some baby back ribs. Holy cats, they were good. Super messy, of course, but delicious! And I have leftovers, so I'll be able to repeat the experience this week!

The pecan shortbread (pic) turned out well, too. I'm a little sad there's no blood orange gelato to go with them, but once the chicken tenders are gone, I will definitely be making it!

In more fannish news, there was a post I saw somewhere on tumblr that talked about a crossover (or fusion? it didn't go into great detail) between Batfam and Dungeon Crawler Carl, and said that the Bats would all be outside during the collapse, and feel obligated to go into the dungeon. And I don't necessarily disagree? But I also don't necessarily agree, either!

In DCC, we're told the collapse happened at approximately 2:20 am PT, which means it was 5:20 am ET, and if you (and by "you" I mean me) believe Gotham is in New Jersey, that is probably after they are all home, and hopefully showering/sleeping, so I'm not sure they survive just by nature of being on patrol. Maybe if Tim is out in San Francisco with the Titans, where it would also be 2:20 am PT, he'd survive, but I'm not necessarily convinced he would go into the dungeon, either. Because there's whatever survivors on the surface to take care of also. Maybe they'd split up? Some would go into the dungeon to see what it was about and others would stay up top to manage any survivors, lead any fighting against alien invaders?

Like, could Kon take being underground for so long without access to sunlight? He should probably stay on the surface and help that way. (I also think this is a hard crossover to make happen simply because...there are canonical aliens in the DCU and also the Green Lantern Corps. So you'd have to do some fast talking/handwaving to get to the interesting parts, because how do the Green Lanterns not know about this? Otoh, you could go full AU/fusion and have Krypton be a world that was stripped ages ago and everyone is shocked to see Kryptonians on Earth. Same with Tamaran or Mars I guess.)

And I do wonder how Batman specifically would fare in a dungeon where killing is the preferred (by the System AI and the Syndicate running the thing and a large portion of the audience) way to survive and advance. He and Cass would find other ways, and I'm sure they would amass fans and, eventually, sponsors, but it'd be harder, I think, especially on the earlier floors. I think we have seen him kill aliens though, at least in the animated universes, so maybe he'd be okay at first with killing goblins and ogres and ghouls etc. Idk.

Jason, otoh, would be all, "I'm built for this!" and shoot his way to glory, or at least do the killing when Bruce and Cass couldn't. Steph and Dick might be pragmatic enough to come around to killing mobs, at least, ( spoiler for Dungeon Crawler Carl )

And while I think a fusion might be a better way to go than a regular crossover (I know there is someone writing a Superman and Carl are BFF in the dungeon, or at least creating art for it, but I don't know what they've chosen to use for backstory), I would love to see Damian interact with Princess Donut. Or the System AI deal with Oracle.

*

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: Fool in the Rain - Led Zeppelin

ofearthandstars

Yesterday we cleaned the house early (caught up on 4 more back episodes of WTNV), then went out to see Project Hail Mary at the theatre. Both L. and I have read the book, and were anxious to see how its adaptation to film went. Personally, I really enjoyed it! For starters, it's just cinematographically beautiful—the visuals and music are stunning, the portrayal of the astrophage engines and the Petrova lines was gorgeous, and Rocky's unique form and movements were handled well. You can be drawn in and forget that a large portion of the film is Ryan Gosling talking to himself and/or a puppet. The science teacher tee shirt game was also on point! But I really appreciated - other than some serious trimming down/speeding up of timelines and having to avoid some of the more notably nerdy chemistry of the book - that the film stayed fairly true to the novel. Also, I read that some folks were annoyed by the pick of Gosling, but I thought he did justice to Dr. Grace's character, especially as the film went deeper. There are few overly goofy bits, but they were overshadowed by other aspects of the film. Anyway, definitely think it is worth the watch!

Today has been much more lackluster. Budget sheet, meal planning, and grocery shopping is out of the way for the week, and I have just wrapped up our 2025 taxes. Federal are filed and in queue, the state will have to be mailed physically since we don't qualify for any of the free e-file options. I do need to work on my next 3-month goals and updating my planner, which I'll do shortly once I finally put the laptop away for the day.

It has been a beautiful weekend out, but The Pollening has seriously started in. I used to berate myself for not doing more gardening and outdoor spring planting, but the current state of being unable to touch nearly anything that has gone outside and being unable to get in and out of cars or go for walks without a physical reaction reminds me why that is.

I recently tried downloading Hoopla to see if it offered more options than Libby, but for my local library, the answer is no. I thought there was a secret trick somewhere to getting access to more library offerings for free, but at this time the most I can find is links to getting a non-resident card for an annual fee. (I mostly use my local county library for e-book offerings, but their selection is limited in a lot of ways.) I am hoping to read along with a work-based book club that has kicked off, but also do not want to necessarily need to purchase everything they cover. I do have some Bookshop.org gift money available, but I have reserved that for fun/want to reads of my own choosing.

The week ahead looks fairly quiet, except I have a therapy appointment that I am looking forward to/very much need.

May you be safe, may you be healthy and well, may you be content, and may you find beauty and joy in your present moment. ♥

Current Mood: productive

umadoshi

Having a week's break from the spring crunch (and a couple of those days as actual days off, not just regular workdays) meant I was able to get some reading and a bit of watching done!

Reading: On the novel(la)s front, two by Seanan McGuire and one by Rachel Reid. Butterfly Effects (the newest InCryptid) was good and also one of the major "wow, the reality (or maybe the scope, rather) of this series bears almost no resemblance to the impression given by the first handful of books" installments; the existence of multiple dimensions comes up very promptly in the early books (I think in the very first), but it was still a big shift to have that become part of the hands-on reality that the characters are dealing with.

Next I read Game Changer, the first book in Rachel Reid's Game Changers series, AKA the Heated Rivalry source material. I expected this to have far more detail on the Scott/Kip relationship than the show did, what with it being a novel that basically got turned into a single episode, but was a bit surprised by how many (most) of the detail in the show was completely different than the book, while the broad strokes are the same. (Also, I feel like I saw more than one reference to show!Kip being very physically different from book!Kip--I'm very sure I saw the word "twink" in play for the book iteration--and am baffled by where that came from, because...no? Anyway.) It was fine. I didn't love it, although I did appreciate many moments that were particularly fun in the context of the show.

And then I read Through Gates of Garnet and Gold, this year's Wayward Children novella. The sheer cost of these novellas made me decide within the last few years to just go for the digital versions rather than hard copies, and this year I opted to simply get the ebook from the library, which is why I read it a couple of months after it came out. I'm just not invested in this particular series. Ah, well.

For manga, I read the fifth omnibus of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, which includes the three volumes available in English that I hadn't previously read at all. (Did I buy vol. 13 and 14 in their original single-volume release and then have to buy this omnibus volume to get vol. 15? Yes. >.<) A sixth omnibus English volume has been scheduled and delayed repeatedly, so I knew there was still at least a fair bit to go--the three volumes to be bundled in that one--but after this catch-up was the first time I actually checked for info online, and I was not braced to see that it's up to 31 volumes in Japan and ongoing. o_o I have no clue what's going on with the English release, but I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say it's probably a mess.

Non-fiction: still reading a chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass here and there, and I've also started (but not gotten far into) Crystal Wilkinson's Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks.

Watching: We're caught up on The Pitt and have a couple episodes of Frieren yet to watch. (Am I right that this season of Frieren is over now?)

We also finished our watch of Heated Rivalry--my second time, and basically

scruloose's first, except for the part where they saw most of the finale with minimal context back when I watched it. They also had some random bits of info in advance for their watch, because when I was initially watching it I wasn't at all thinking in terms of "this is a thing they may wind up watching" (they have much less interest in watching things in general than I do), so I'd been blithely telling them random stuff here and there before we got to the point of "perhaps

scruloose will watch Canada's new national export after all". La? But they really enjoyed the show, which is the important thing. ^_^

Current Mood: restless

muninnhuginn

February 2026

February recap so, so very late. Blame the exhaustion.

Read:

Shorts:

A Velvet Chair Anywhere but Home by Brianna Alers
The Shape of You by Dana Wall
The Heretic • by Jeff Gard

Non-fiction

So the Epstein scandal is about politics? Silly me for thinking it’s about the mass abuse of women and girls by Marina Hyde
The Dragon Caught in the Poem by Mari Ness
Carbon Dysphoria by Iris Meredith
Starlink Is Dropping From the Sky Again and Again. Scientists Warn Earth Is Already Feeling the Effects by Evelyn Hart
Craft on the Production Line by Kristie De Garis
How Generative and Agentic AI Shift Concern from Technical Debt to Cognitive Debt by Margaret Storey
The Cuddled Little Vice(Sandman) by Elizabeth Sandifer
Rupert Lowe’s challenge is real: Do we want a politics of care, or of hate? by Richard Murphy
The AI Climate Hoax: Behind the Curtain of How Big Tech Greenwashes Impacts by Ketan Joshi
Why AI writing is so generic, boring, and dangerous: Semantic ablation by Claudio Nastruzz

sonia

I thought I posted this before, but I'm not finding it.

A group of mainly women scholars and makers at the top of their fields gathered together to interpret and recreate the outfit and gifts that the suitor gave to the woman he's pursuing in the song Greensleeves. Fascinating look at history and the details of both the clothing and how to make it. The Greensleeves Project

The making of video

Watch on YouTube

And the result

Watch on YouTube

Profile

Sonia Connolly

TraumaHealed.com

March 2026

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Page Summary

mrissa - Short stuff I've liked, first quarter 2026
cosmolinguist - Pompeii and covid
cosmolinguist - not exactly value for money!
jadelennox - but it's my destiny to be the king of fail
xkcd_feed - Inflation Timeline
muninnhuginn - "When you are simply maintaining, the world is at a loss"
danah_boyd_feed - Pre-Order “Data Are Made, Not Found”!
ofearthandstars - Friday Five: Journaling Edition
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 23-03-2026
andrewducker - Morning medical annoyance
thelastwordonnothing_feed - The Harrier
siderea - Syncopated tritone hockets for everybody! [early music, MA]
siderea - Foxfibre [text/ag]
jesse_the_k - Shadow Update: Hosting & Bedding
elainegrey - (garden, adhd, executive function, f&f, cats)
musesfool - like a star that can't wait for a night
ofearthandstars - Weekend update 2,428
umadoshi - Weekly proof of life: media intake while catching my breath in a break in the crunch
muninnhuginn - February 2026
sonia - Music: The Greensleeves Project

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Style: Green Rain for Paletteable by branchandroot
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Page generated Mar. 24th, 2026 08:46 am

Say what?

Reading

Short stuff I've liked, first quarter 2026

Pompeii and covid

not exactly value for money!

but it's my destiny to be the king of fail

Inflation Timeline

"When you are simply maintaining, the world is at a loss"

Pre-Order “Data Are Made, Not Found”!

Friday Five: Journaling Edition

Interesting Links for 23-03-2026

Morning medical annoyance

The Harrier

Syncopated tritone hockets for everybody! [early music, MA]

Foxfibre [text/ag]

Shadow Update: Hosting & Bedding

(garden, adhd, executive function, f&f, cats)

like a star that can't wait for a night

Weekend update 2,428

Weekly proof of life: media intake while catching my breath in a break in the crunch

February 2026

February 2026

Music: The Greensleeves Project

Profile

March 2026

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