New Post at Lady Business!

Apr. 23rd, 2025 09:35 am
forestofglory: A drawing of a woman wearing white riding a leaping brown horse (The Long Ballad)
[personal profile] forestofglory
I have a new post out at [community profile] ladybusiness "Adventures with Crossdressing Sword Girls" where I talk about some of the crossdressing girl media I've been watching recently and a bit about why I like this trope so much. Come tell me about your favorite crossdressing girl media!

Wednesday reading

Apr. 23rd, 2025 05:08 pm
queen_ypolita: Books stacked to form a spiral (Bookspiral by celticfire)
[personal profile] queen_ypolita
Finished since the last reading post
Finished Homintern, which was a bit bulky to hold while reading but which offered informative and insightful chapters on the connections, travels, and staying abroad of various queer people in the arts from late 19th century to late mid-20th century.

Also finished In the Full Light of the Sun, which I'd bought on a whim in the autumn and didn't really have any idea if I'd get along with it. But I really enjoyed it, the three different points of view to a fictional (but inspired by a real case) art forgery story from the 1920s and early 1930s Germany.

And also finished Delay of Game, which was OK as undemanding bedtime reading, to the extent I'm struggling to remember what the protagonists were called a week later.

And finally, finished The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women in Space by Loren Grush. While I knew something about Sally Ride and Judy Resnik, and knew that the 1978 astronaut selection was the first time when women were selected, I'd never stopped to think about who the other women in that first group were or if they ever actually travelled on the space shuttle. And this book delivered on the promise to tell me more, it was a nice easy read

Currently reading
Started reading Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 by Katja Hoyer, which I first heard about during the German film course I did in January.

Also reading Home Ice Advantage by Ari Baran, the third book in the romance novel trilogy I've been reading recently.

Reading next
Not entirely sure

Things

Apr. 23rd, 2025 08:33 pm
vass: Small turtle with green leaf in its mouth (Default)
[personal profile] vass
Books
Very little progress.

Crafts
Dyed a 36x45cm piece of white 14 count aida cloth purple, for Secret Reasons. And now I know that I can get a reasonable result doing that with a large storage box and hot water, winging the quantity of Rit dye. Shenanigans may result.

Food
My parents' Christmas present to me, a new frying pan, just made it to me today. I haven't test-driven it yet, but it looks nice. And like it should heat up easier than the cast iron one my stove can't really handle, much as I love it.

Weather
Finally cooling down. Good.

Other
One of the Discord servers I'm in had a PowerPoint night. I didn't present, but I contributed a very unserious set of slides for someone else to present sight unseen. This was a heap of fun, and I recommend this form of grownup show and tell to other nerds. I am already working on my next such document.

In a different Discord, a discussion of linguistics prompted me to make a series of noises which in turn made Dorian give me a very funny look. If you would like to provoke yourself to make a series of noises that will make your cats give you funny looks, here is the chart.

Daydream

Apr. 23rd, 2025 08:11 pm
vass: Warning sign of man in water with an octopus (Accidentally)
[personal profile] vass
What if, when you went to a nonprofit/charity/etc website because you want to donate money to them, you could add ?nomarketing on the end of the link, and it would bring up a barebones version of their donation page that would JUST LET YOU MAKE A SINGLE DONATION.

It would not sign you up to their newsletter.
It would not give them permission to contact you.
It would not ask you to share their link on social media.
It would not ask you how you found them.
It would not show you a thank you letter written in the first person by a composite version of one of their clients.
It would not show you tragic and distressing photographs or descriptions of the horrible things happening to the people you HAVE ALREADY DECIDED TO GIVE MONEY TO HELP.
There would not be any animated banners or carousels.
There would be no popups.
Required fields on the form would only be information they genuinely cannot accept your money without, and they would have checked both the law on what information they actually need and their assumptions about names and titles (e.g. not everyone has a first name, not everyone has a last name, not everyone's name is short, some names have spaces or apostrophes or hyphens, not everyone belongs to one of the four genders Mr, Mrs, Miss, and Dr.)
It would not give you a menu with three choices: make your one-off donation a monthly amount, make your one-off donation a monthly amount but more money, or (deselected and in a duller colour) "keep your one-off donation" before letting you donate.
Or after you donate.
Or both.

I understand they have a job to do, but do they understand how aversive this experience is? It is the biggest thing about charitable giving that I dread, when I have enough to give. "Hi, I'd like to give you some mon-" "CAN YOU GIVE US MORE? CAN YOU GIVE IT EVERY MONTH? KIDS ARE DYING, VASS, ANIMALS ARE DYING, THE PLANET IS DYING, MOREMOREMOREMORE CAN WE TEXT YOU, CAN WE CALL YOU UP AND TELL YOU ABOUT THE DYING KIDS CAN YOU TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS TO GIVE US MONEY TOO-"

If they made it less stressful, I would not have to psych myself up to do this. And by definition this is how they are treating people who already want to help them.

World Book Day

Apr. 23rd, 2025 12:10 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The official theme for World Book Day 2025 is:

"Read Your Way: Diverse Books for Every Mind"

This theme emphasizes the importance of inclusion and diversity in reading. It encourages readers to explore different voices, perspectives, and cultures through literature, promoting empathy and global understanding
.

Read more... )

Good News

Apr. 23rd, 2025 12:09 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Good news includes all the things which make us happy or otherwise feel good. It can be personal or public. We never know when something wonderful will happen, and when it does, most people want to share it with someone. It's disappointing when nobody is there to appreciate it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our joys and pat each other on the back.

What good news have you had recently? Are you anticipating any more? Have you found a cute picture or a video that makes you smile? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your life a little happier?

Today's Adventures

Apr. 22nd, 2025 11:08 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today we went out shopping.

Read more... )

Insect Apocalypse

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:29 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Insects are disappearing due to agriculture -- and many other drivers, new research reveals

New paper highlights 500+ interconnected drivers behind global insect decline.
Insects are disappearing at an alarming rate worldwide, but why? Agricultural intensification tops the list of proposed reasons, but there are many other, interconnected drivers that have an impact, according to new research
.

Read more... )

Happy Earth Day!

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:13 pm
wyld_dandelyon: (let's go!)
[personal profile] wyld_dandelyon
I've been under the weather. This time I managed to get Bronchitis just from the end of the winter heating season (unless a friend with a congestive heart condition was actually sick, and not just coughing because of the heart condition). But I think this was coming on earlier, and the med regime my former allergist suggested was keeping my lungs and sinuses a lot clearer than in the past, but not enough for my body to clear out the infection.

Well, I came to this conclusion Friday, with (among other things) singing at the Eurofilk showing me I was unusually short of breath for singing; I already had an appointment with my newish primary doc who I really like on Monday, and when I tried to call the allergist last month to set up an appointment, there was no answer or answering machine on his number, or on the alternate number I found on Google. I did find an article about him listing him as 81 years old, and I'm not sure how long ago that was written, so I'm assuming he died or retired. So, I waited out the weekend and got tireder and tireder, and shorter and shorter of breath.

Happily, she was willing to prescribe antibiotics and steroids (if I'd gotten antibiotics on Friday, that might have been enough), unhappily, when they figured out that the only way they could give me the meds the doc thought most appropriate that didn't have corn in it (kids' liquid, again), it turned out that the pharmacy couldn't fill it until today. It was too late to try to talk the doc into prescribing something different, as the clinic was closed.

So today I woke up way too early, and was NOT falling asleep again (my body does insist on waking when I really need meds, which freaked out my RN mother when I was first sick enough to always be awake when she came in to wake me up to take them). This was handy in that I was able to deal with a bank overdraft for my grown-up kid (she's still using the account I got her when she went to Denmark in 4th grade so I could easily transfer money to her if there was an unexpected need, so, being awake I saw the text notification) (Her birthday is later this month, so an early birthday gift was perfectly reasonable).

And then I had food and called the pharmacy, because I WANTED those meds before the rest of the day's errands, which included getting My Angel to her PT appointment, mailing a thing (in a post office, since there seems to be no more drop-off boxes outside our regular post office any more--WTF, government?--and going to pick up meds at a different pharmacy too.

The strip mall the post office was in had one of the closing JoAnne Fabrics, which had almost no fabric left, and not much of anything else either. I did find some things to buy, including two substantially marked down big bags designed to hold a sewing machine and sewing stuff, but which I plan to use one of for author stuff (books, display, etc.) on the assumption that I'll do signings at cons again, and the other for acrylic paints, brushes, and the like since my current bag and plastic bin plan isn't working out as well as I'd like, and because having that stuff on wheels will be very convenient.

I also got some beads, wire, a thimble and multitool, sewing machine needles, an ironing pad to put on a table, some tape, a couple of pillow forms for planned gifting, and, surprisingly, a basket of tumbled stones to put in the fishtank. Sadly, the heavy-duty dolly they had pictured in the front as available had already been sold. I looked at the jewelry making stuff, thought about the heavy duty crimper and some of those beads, but I haven't been making jewelry lately and can use the hemostats I use for holding autoharp strings to crimp things, so I left those behind. I did also get some very discounted project boards, so if we decide to go to one or more protests, we can take signs.

And I took photos of our daffodils in the middle of all that.

I am cheered by all the photos of protests I'm seeing, and by how badly Elon's car company is doing. It gives me hope. Keep contacting your elected officials, we've got to wear them down until they stand up to our very cruel and foolish leader.

Now I am going to hit post and go watch Rachel show all those pictures of the signs again, and do Duolinguo, so I don't miss a day, and fall in bed. Maybe I'll manage to post Daffodil pics tomorrow.

THERE IS MORE PET SHOP OF HORRORS

Apr. 22nd, 2025 10:05 pm
spindizzy: Raven looking shocked and horrified. (WHAT?!)
[personal profile] spindizzy
I AM SCREAMING

SEVEN SEAS STARTED RELEASING A NEW TRANSLATION OF PET SHOP OF HORRORS IN FEBRUARY

AND THERE'S TWO NEW SPIN-OFFS

AND I LITERALLY ONLY JUST LEARNED ABOUT IT TODAY OH MY FUCKING GOD I AM FIRING MYSELF AS A FAN HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS

Birdfeeding

Apr. 22nd, 2025 02:17 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is mostly sunny and warm with a light breeze, a beautiful spring day.  :D

I fed the birds.  I've seen several sparrows and house finches, two brown-headed cowbirds, a mourning dove, and two fox squirrels.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 4/22/25 -- We went out shopping.  I picked out roughly 5 flats of plants at DeBuhr's.  We found a garden hose, nozzle, and reel plus a gas can at Home Depot.  Also at Home Depot I spotted a modular garage storage system that looks very promising.  It has mounting rails for shelves and a wide variety of hooks.  That ought to combine well with a pegboard.

EDIT 4/22/25 -- I planted a 'Sugar Snack' cherry tomato and a 'Yellow Pear' tomato in the large pots by the septic garden, each with 4 marigolds around it.

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

If anyone could use a morale boost

Apr. 22nd, 2025 05:17 pm
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/04/protests-erupt-across-the-uk-after-supreme-court-ruled-against-trans-rights/

Many many pictures.

Also, more protests yet to come, apparently, with ones scheduled for Oxford and Cambridge.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The following is a growing reading list for the ReadPalestinianSpecFic challenge. This is a work in progress to create a list of all available Palestinian speculative fiction.
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Recently I bought a little fern, so I'm making a new terrarium. You can also see the previous Antique Jar Terrarium.

Read more... )
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