(no subject)
Oct. 16th, 2025 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormEvery once in awhile I cycle through thinking about how, in order to be considered properly disabled, one needs to perform misery about it. I think I'm generally resistant to performing the emotions I'm supposed to, and I'm acutely aware of the difference between difficulty or discomfort and unhappiness. Luckily this hasn't so far meant starvation or homelessness for me.
More than a week's break from the pill so far. Easy, sharp, long-lasting headaches and I can see how the ghosts of danger are going to slowly come back, but there is so much less both pan and discomfort in my lower torso that I'm going to ride this line a little longer.
Muscles sludgier than normal. There's so much to do in fall to get ready for the real cold, and I'm always behind. I've been starting the very slow, multi-week process of cleaning the house to get ready for Josh, that definitely doesn't help.
More than a week's break from the pill so far. Easy, sharp, long-lasting headaches and I can see how the ghosts of danger are going to slowly come back, but there is so much less both pan and discomfort in my lower torso that I'm going to ride this line a little longer.
Muscles sludgier than normal. There's so much to do in fall to get ready for the real cold, and I'm always behind. I've been starting the very slow, multi-week process of cleaning the house to get ready for Josh, that definitely doesn't help.
So very much, as usual - Early October 02025
Oct. 16th, 2025 07:51 amsilveradeptLet us begin with the fact that Reading Rainbow, a staple of many a young child of previous decades, mixing in library promotion, books, reading, and activities, is getting a new season with a new host, Mychal the Librarian. Someone who has already proven that he's perfect for the job on social media as a librarian, and who has already been working with PBS as their resident librarian for at least a year. Which continues with the way that Reading Rainbow has shows us a well-known Black man being excited about books, libraries, and exceling at things outside what certain people believe he should be good at.
Eastman Kodak is once again selling still picture film stock, but this time it will be selling directly to film distributors, who will likely be more than happy to have Kodak film camera rolls for their photography buffs.
If you are not already aware, Archive.Today is one of the more popular ways for people to get content as it appears on a website, but without any of the login walls and demands for support. It will not last forever, and it's worth supporting local and independent journalism with your currency, but there are quite a few places that believe you should have to pay up significantly just for a single article to look at.
At the end of that particular piece, there's talk about sharing the already wall-leapt version of the thing instead of the original. While the site does offer the original URL for what it has scraped, my citation scholarship kicks in and says that I should offer the original place, even if the way to read the same content is through archive.today or some other paywall jumper.
Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, primatologist, animal rights advocate, and generally good sport, now gets to explore the secrets of the universe at 91 years of age. We know, thanks to her, that "tool-using animal" is a bigger catgegory than just homo sapiens, and much more about the lives of chimpanzees. My first exposure to Dr. Goodall, however, was the introduction she wrote to one of the Far Side comic book compilations, where she talked about having been the subject of one of the comics and how she found it an absolute delight to have been part of humor, even with other people who wanted to take offense on her behalf. (Including the insitute that she's founded, taking offense to the doctor being called a "tramp" by a chimpanzee in one of the comics.) Her serious work with apes and chimps and such is also entirely notable, but the Far Side introduction is just a nice reminder to us that even scientsists have a sense of humor. (And, in fact, they often have a very sharp sense of humor.)
Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, who gained a certain amount of fame as the chaplain of the men's basketball team for Loyola Chicago during an unprecedented NCAA tournament run, passed into the hands of her god at 106 years of age. 106 is an excellent innings, and from the report on her, it seems that she was someone who spent that time in the service that she dedicated herself to for her life.
Ninety-five years after the completion of her thesis, Oxford University awarded a posthumous Master's of Philosophy to the first Māori scholar they had admitted to their ranks. From the excerpts of her diary that one of her descendants shared, she seems to have been an excellent person full of an interesting life.
The online academic article and scholarly research repository JSTOR has opened their doors to non-institutional researchers, allowing a limited number of article viewings per month to registered users who are not affiliated with institutional subscribers.
( There's always more inside, from bad decisions to kidnapping squads and the use of truly shady surveillance software )
Last out, suggestions on where to go to get good programming and intersting shows if you've decided that you want less corporate oligarchy in your life. If you are thinking about taking up embroidery, there's a stitch bank that may be able to help you find and practice new techniques.
A prescient delineation between what the purpose of the library and the librarian is when it comes to a person's relation to information, and what the purpose of the ad company with a search engine or the LLM with inexhaustible confidence and (at best) an approximate knowledge of some things is for the same. Those who have lived through this era will not be surprised to find that the purpose of the LLM and the ad company is not to help you understand what you actually want and get you relevant resources, but instead to show you ads.
And finally, a searchable index of verious symbols that, when clicked upon, will copy the correct Unicode code point to your computer clipboard for easy pasting.
(Materials viaadrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
Eastman Kodak is once again selling still picture film stock, but this time it will be selling directly to film distributors, who will likely be more than happy to have Kodak film camera rolls for their photography buffs.
If you are not already aware, Archive.Today is one of the more popular ways for people to get content as it appears on a website, but without any of the login walls and demands for support. It will not last forever, and it's worth supporting local and independent journalism with your currency, but there are quite a few places that believe you should have to pay up significantly just for a single article to look at.
At the end of that particular piece, there's talk about sharing the already wall-leapt version of the thing instead of the original. While the site does offer the original URL for what it has scraped, my citation scholarship kicks in and says that I should offer the original place, even if the way to read the same content is through archive.today or some other paywall jumper.
Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, primatologist, animal rights advocate, and generally good sport, now gets to explore the secrets of the universe at 91 years of age. We know, thanks to her, that "tool-using animal" is a bigger catgegory than just homo sapiens, and much more about the lives of chimpanzees. My first exposure to Dr. Goodall, however, was the introduction she wrote to one of the Far Side comic book compilations, where she talked about having been the subject of one of the comics and how she found it an absolute delight to have been part of humor, even with other people who wanted to take offense on her behalf. (Including the insitute that she's founded, taking offense to the doctor being called a "tramp" by a chimpanzee in one of the comics.) Her serious work with apes and chimps and such is also entirely notable, but the Far Side introduction is just a nice reminder to us that even scientsists have a sense of humor. (And, in fact, they often have a very sharp sense of humor.)
Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, who gained a certain amount of fame as the chaplain of the men's basketball team for Loyola Chicago during an unprecedented NCAA tournament run, passed into the hands of her god at 106 years of age. 106 is an excellent innings, and from the report on her, it seems that she was someone who spent that time in the service that she dedicated herself to for her life.
Ninety-five years after the completion of her thesis, Oxford University awarded a posthumous Master's of Philosophy to the first Māori scholar they had admitted to their ranks. From the excerpts of her diary that one of her descendants shared, she seems to have been an excellent person full of an interesting life.
The online academic article and scholarly research repository JSTOR has opened their doors to non-institutional researchers, allowing a limited number of article viewings per month to registered users who are not affiliated with institutional subscribers.
( There's always more inside, from bad decisions to kidnapping squads and the use of truly shady surveillance software )
Last out, suggestions on where to go to get good programming and intersting shows if you've decided that you want less corporate oligarchy in your life. If you are thinking about taking up embroidery, there's a stitch bank that may be able to help you find and practice new techniques.
A prescient delineation between what the purpose of the library and the librarian is when it comes to a person's relation to information, and what the purpose of the ad company with a search engine or the LLM with inexhaustible confidence and (at best) an approximate knowledge of some things is for the same. Those who have lived through this era will not be surprised to find that the purpose of the LLM and the ad company is not to help you understand what you actually want and get you relevant resources, but instead to show you ads.
And finally, a searchable index of verious symbols that, when clicked upon, will copy the correct Unicode code point to your computer clipboard for easy pasting.
(Materials via
adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
Venezuela and the US: the Last Two Weeks [cur ev, war, Patreon]
Oct. 16th, 2025 06:16 amsidereaCanonical link: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1885137.html
Content Advisory: US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within.
[Previously: The Essequibo (Buddy-ta-na-na, We Are Somebody, Oh): Part 1]
I am still desperately trying to pull together Part 2 of this series, but in the meanwhile, more things keep happening. I keep checking in with my focus group, aka, Mr. Bostoniensis, about what he is seeing in the news, because my own algorithms are, uh, rather peculiarly trained at this point, and the answer seems "rock all", so I thought I'd post a news round-up of some of the developments over the last couple of weeks. (Holy crap it's been two weeks.)
( It comes out that the Trump administration has literalized the 'War on Drugs'. [CW: 'controlled but unclassified'] )
( US terminates diplomatic relations with Venezuela )
( Fourth US strike on a boat in Venezuelan waters is announced by Trump admin )
( Venezuela announces it foiled a false-flag plot against the US Embassy in Venezuela )
( Democrats in Senate try to limit Trump's war powers but fail )
( The Venezuelan opposition leader wins the Nobel Peace prize )
( Venezuela requests emergency intervention from the UN Security Council )
( The US asks Grenada, 100 miles off Venezuela's coast, to allow US military installation )
( The Nobel Peace Prize winner dedicates the prize to Trump, confusing a lot of people who haven't been keeping score )
( It comes out that Maduro had been trying to negotiate his way out of US demands for his outster by offering up 'a dominant stake in Venezuela's oil' )
( UN Security Council has emergency meeting per Venezuela's request )
( Maduro closes Venezuela's embassies in Norway and Australia )
( Venezuelan activist and political consultant in exile in Colombia were shot )
( US bombs fifth boat off Venezuela, six killed )
( US announces Admiral in charge of US SOUTHCOM visiting Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada )
Which brings us to today. (Well, it was today when I started writing this.)
( Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela [CW: 'highly classified'] )
( Three US Air Force B-52 bombers buzzed Venezuela for four hours; Venezeula scrambles an F-16 in response )
( It comes out that the boat of Colombians bombed in September was not bombed by mistake, but was deliberate )
( Nobel Laureate Machado exhorts Trump to rescue Venezuela from Maduro )
( Trump is musing aloud to the press about airstrikes on Venezuela )
This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one
of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.
Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
Content Advisory: US government classified and controlled unclassified info leaked to news outlets, within.
[Previously: The Essequibo (Buddy-ta-na-na, We Are Somebody, Oh): Part 1]
Now, when looking at these strikes being carried out in the Caribbean, shockingly, I think there's not been a ton of coverage on this. CNN, for one, their Pentagon reporters, have been some of the only ones consistently covering what's happening in Venezuela. CNN and the New York Times right now, I would say, are the two that are kind of all over this and have been for a while. I don't know why it's getting so little coverage elsewhere, but it is. So, normally I would like to look at these, uh, these reports and source them from multiple different outlets and we just don't have that because there's so limited coverage around US military operations in SOUTHCOM right now.— Preston Stewart [PrestonStewart on YT], 2025 Oct 15, "American Bombers Send A Message To Venezuela"
[...] I know that the people of the United States are attentive observers and the people of the United States are very aware of what is being attempted against Venezuela is armed aggression to impose regime change.— Nicolás Maduro, 2025 Oct 3, via Times of India via AP via VTV, "Venezuela Deploys Army & Tanks After Another Deadly U.S Attack, Fighter Jet action"
I am still desperately trying to pull together Part 2 of this series, but in the meanwhile, more things keep happening. I keep checking in with my focus group, aka, Mr. Bostoniensis, about what he is seeing in the news, because my own algorithms are, uh, rather peculiarly trained at this point, and the answer seems "rock all", so I thought I'd post a news round-up of some of the developments over the last couple of weeks. (Holy crap it's been two weeks.)
October 2nd
( It comes out that the Trump administration has literalized the 'War on Drugs'. [CW: 'controlled but unclassified'] )
( US terminates diplomatic relations with Venezuela )
October 3rd
( Fourth US strike on a boat in Venezuelan waters is announced by Trump admin )
October 6th
( Venezuela announces it foiled a false-flag plot against the US Embassy in Venezuela )
October 8th
( Democrats in Senate try to limit Trump's war powers but fail )
October 9th
( The Venezuelan opposition leader wins the Nobel Peace prize )
( Venezuela requests emergency intervention from the UN Security Council )
( The US asks Grenada, 100 miles off Venezuela's coast, to allow US military installation )
October 10th
( The Nobel Peace Prize winner dedicates the prize to Trump, confusing a lot of people who haven't been keeping score )
( It comes out that Maduro had been trying to negotiate his way out of US demands for his outster by offering up 'a dominant stake in Venezuela's oil' )
( UN Security Council has emergency meeting per Venezuela's request )
October 13th
( Maduro closes Venezuela's embassies in Norway and Australia )
( Venezuelan activist and political consultant in exile in Colombia were shot )
October 14th
( US bombs fifth boat off Venezuela, six killed )
( US announces Admiral in charge of US SOUTHCOM visiting Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada )
Which brings us to today. (Well, it was today when I started writing this.)
October 15th
( Trump has authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela [CW: 'highly classified'] )
( Three US Air Force B-52 bombers buzzed Venezuela for four hours; Venezeula scrambles an F-16 in response )
( It comes out that the boat of Colombians bombed in September was not bombed by mistake, but was deliberate )
( Nobel Laureate Machado exhorts Trump to rescue Venezuela from Maduro )
( Trump is musing aloud to the press about airstrikes on Venezuela )
This post brought to you by the 220 readers who funded my writing it – thank you all so much! You can see who they are at my Patreon page. If you're not one
of them, and would be willing to chip in so I can write more things like this, please do so there.
Please leave comments on the Comment Catcher comment, instead of the main body of the post – unless you are commenting to get a copy of the post sent to you in email through the notification system, then go ahead and comment on it directly. Thanks!
shoes for an offering
Oct. 15th, 2025 06:36 pmasakiyumewakanomori ran in the Cape Cod Marathon over the weekend--in the teeth of an approaching nor'easter! While he was slogging it out, I wandered the coast, nibbling rose hips and admiring plants like this one, with soft, enticing seed heads. I found out it's called "groundsel bush," also sea-myrtle or saltbush (Baccharis halimifolia)
These patent leather shoes grabbed my attention, tucked just so on the other side of the wall separating the beach from the sidewalk. No one was walking barefoot on the beach except gulls and cormorants.
They look like shiny eggs in a nest.
Or like an offering. In The Snow Queen, Gerda gives her new red shoes to the river, believing that the river has taken her playmate Kay, and that by offering the river her shoes, she can induce it to give him back. But the river hasn't taken Kay.
These black shoes aren't near enough to the ocean to really count as an offering to the waves or tide, I don't think.
So if they're an offering, to or for whom?
Or maybe someone just doesn't like their patent leather shoes and has left them for someone else to claim.
Tags:
(no subject)
Oct. 14th, 2025 08:59 pmgreenstormTonight I have more access to my emotions than I have for awhile. This is maybe five or so days off birth(er, actually PMDD hormonal) control, though I'm still on the sertraline stabilizer. I had missed having visceral access to this huge breadth of love. I'm curious how it will relate to my energy use (did I mention they've developed a technical medical term, "energy envelope"? I always appreciate when language cateches up with me).
I have no more problem solving or day-to-day thinking capacity. The grocery store was using a different door while they painted outside their normal one; I went in, couldn't figure out what to do, where to go, or what I wanted despite having a list so I got a random item and bought it because I was in some kind of autopilot. I still can't reliably get the sequence of bathroom-->toilet seat up-->pants down-->pee-->toilet paper-->flush toilet-->wash hands as much as I'd like. But I can feel the feeling of missing people.
And I can do narrative better. Siri and Whiskey seem to sense that it's a rough night and are staying close, protectively.
The big sky is coming back for the winter. There's ice on the north side of the house that will probably still be there in April. My bedroom is warm and comfy. While, surprisingly, being off the pill has removed all pain below my belly button, I'm getting stronger and more reliable pain in the window an hour to three hours after I eat. It's a stupid metaphor for loneliness, pain after the brief pleasure of eating or company.
I remember now that love and loneliness are two sides of a single coin for me. Access to one seems to mean access to the other. And yet, here I am loving my home and my self and my life at the same time.
Poly means always being lonely for someone, or is that just a human thing? I don't think most people feel it often?
I have no more problem solving or day-to-day thinking capacity. The grocery store was using a different door while they painted outside their normal one; I went in, couldn't figure out what to do, where to go, or what I wanted despite having a list so I got a random item and bought it because I was in some kind of autopilot. I still can't reliably get the sequence of bathroom-->toilet seat up-->pants down-->pee-->toilet paper-->flush toilet-->wash hands as much as I'd like. But I can feel the feeling of missing people.
And I can do narrative better. Siri and Whiskey seem to sense that it's a rough night and are staying close, protectively.
The big sky is coming back for the winter. There's ice on the north side of the house that will probably still be there in April. My bedroom is warm and comfy. While, surprisingly, being off the pill has removed all pain below my belly button, I'm getting stronger and more reliable pain in the window an hour to three hours after I eat. It's a stupid metaphor for loneliness, pain after the brief pleasure of eating or company.
I remember now that love and loneliness are two sides of a single coin for me. Access to one seems to mean access to the other. And yet, here I am loving my home and my self and my life at the same time.
Poly means always being lonely for someone, or is that just a human thing? I don't think most people feel it often?
Ashanty notes!
Oct. 14th, 2025 06:27 amsorcyressHad a _really_ lovely weekend with SamSam's family. Highlights:
*Nine of us biked to the beach together, me taking the tail with my giant ass-cargo bike. The roads were mostly dirt, sand, and gravel, it was a terrible choice, I had a wonderful time. Seeing the ocean was real good and I liked also watching the hermit crabs run around in the tide pool --there were so many!
*Later four of us biked to the cranberry bog to pick berries. This would've worked better had we not gradually realized that every batch of berries was comorbid with a small little section of poison ivy. We rinsed our hands and managed to all avoid getting rashes, but then we had to decide what to do with the berries we had already gathered. Sam was first to get rid of theirs, and tossed them into the pond. YES GOOD SUCH GREAT NOISES, the rest of us immediately followed.
*Ben and I managed to drag four total beginners through ringing Erin on bodies. Ringing on bodies is _the best_ and I had forgotten how much easier it is to do with dancers, and that's so good. I took some notes about how to do it, so hopefully that will go better in the future. I still have not yet internalized what direction to set up/start plain hunt though (we walked the wrong way to begin and had to switch the orientation of the set)
*Elanor and different-Ben wrote a little fifteen minute play for us all to perform. I believe there was only one person who was consistently in the audience, the rest of us all kept running up and down to/from the stage for our parts. There was one table-read and zero rehearsals. My script got caught in the curtain while it was opening so I had to awkwardly lean behind me to look at my scene-partner's. It was very stupid and delightful! It felt _excessively_ Melendy (honestly, a lot of the weekend did, and now I'm craving rereading a bunch of those).
*After, Steve taught us a game at a pool table that involved trying to roll the cue ball (by hand) to hit the single other ball before that other one stopped moving. Once you got them to hit, it was the next person's turn to grab the cue ball from wherever it was, and send it off. We played largely non-competitive and got eight of us going in a little cycle for a while. Extremely satisfying game!
*I played Crokinole yesterday morning with Sam. I'm _rubbish_ at it, but it's a very tactilely satisfying game so now I want to play more. I wonder if I can become a secret crokinole sharp using common household items?
*Thom and Liz bundled me and Laurel off after dinner on Saturday to Plan Their Wedding Dance. It was very cute to be in that space with people I love and doing something I have a lot of expertise in *and* bouncing that expertise off someone else with a lot of expertise. I think it'll be a nice little dance! There's gonna be a small group of Scottish dances for people who know what they're doing first, and it was _extremely_ funny for Thom to name dances, me or Laurel to go "wait how's that one go?" and Liz to immediately start singing the tune, which is not...*not* how they go, but is absolutely not what either of the callers were requesting.
There's probably more, but that's the big things I can remember this morning. Now it's time to head to work and do some of the grading I completely neglected.
~Sor
MOOP!
*Nine of us biked to the beach together, me taking the tail with my giant ass-cargo bike. The roads were mostly dirt, sand, and gravel, it was a terrible choice, I had a wonderful time. Seeing the ocean was real good and I liked also watching the hermit crabs run around in the tide pool --there were so many!
*Later four of us biked to the cranberry bog to pick berries. This would've worked better had we not gradually realized that every batch of berries was comorbid with a small little section of poison ivy. We rinsed our hands and managed to all avoid getting rashes, but then we had to decide what to do with the berries we had already gathered. Sam was first to get rid of theirs, and tossed them into the pond. YES GOOD SUCH GREAT NOISES, the rest of us immediately followed.
*Ben and I managed to drag four total beginners through ringing Erin on bodies. Ringing on bodies is _the best_ and I had forgotten how much easier it is to do with dancers, and that's so good. I took some notes about how to do it, so hopefully that will go better in the future. I still have not yet internalized what direction to set up/start plain hunt though (we walked the wrong way to begin and had to switch the orientation of the set)
*Elanor and different-Ben wrote a little fifteen minute play for us all to perform. I believe there was only one person who was consistently in the audience, the rest of us all kept running up and down to/from the stage for our parts. There was one table-read and zero rehearsals. My script got caught in the curtain while it was opening so I had to awkwardly lean behind me to look at my scene-partner's. It was very stupid and delightful! It felt _excessively_ Melendy (honestly, a lot of the weekend did, and now I'm craving rereading a bunch of those).
*After, Steve taught us a game at a pool table that involved trying to roll the cue ball (by hand) to hit the single other ball before that other one stopped moving. Once you got them to hit, it was the next person's turn to grab the cue ball from wherever it was, and send it off. We played largely non-competitive and got eight of us going in a little cycle for a while. Extremely satisfying game!
*I played Crokinole yesterday morning with Sam. I'm _rubbish_ at it, but it's a very tactilely satisfying game so now I want to play more. I wonder if I can become a secret crokinole sharp using common household items?
*Thom and Liz bundled me and Laurel off after dinner on Saturday to Plan Their Wedding Dance. It was very cute to be in that space with people I love and doing something I have a lot of expertise in *and* bouncing that expertise off someone else with a lot of expertise. I think it'll be a nice little dance! There's gonna be a small group of Scottish dances for people who know what they're doing first, and it was _extremely_ funny for Thom to name dances, me or Laurel to go "wait how's that one go?" and Liz to immediately start singing the tune, which is not...*not* how they go, but is absolutely not what either of the callers were requesting.
There's probably more, but that's the big things I can remember this morning. Now it's time to head to work and do some of the grading I completely neglected.
~Sor
MOOP!
Some medical and med-adjacent stuff
Oct. 13th, 2025 09:39 amgreenstormPutting uninteresting medical stuff all in one post so I can refer back to it.
It's thanksgiving weekend. I had a doctor's appointment at the end of last week. There was no paperwork to do, so I decided to focus on a symptom cluster, since last time I talked to her she said she thought it made sense for us to focus on managing symptoms rather than figuring out what was going on.
I've been writing "GI symptoms" on things for awhile, but that has been escalating in the last few months to the point that eating has become pretty torturous, so we talked about that. She's prescribed some things to try, and is going to send me to have my gallbladder ultrasounded. She also recommended some diet stuff, which is of course challenging to implement but at this point I'm spending some time immobilized by stabbing pain and also having trouble lying down or leaning over reliably in the three hours after eating so it's worth spending some of my limited spoons on it.
(I do not really enjoy the term "spoons" because I feel like it leads me into imprecision about what exactly limited resources I'm thinking about, but today I'd rather use the limited resources on solving the problem rather than analyzing what I mean by "spoons". Ha)
I'm also taking a one-week break from the birth control pill I've been taking basically continuously for a couple years, barring the occasional user-error day. As soon as I went off the pill some of my other GI symptoms diminished, lower-abdominal stuff and toilet related stuff, possibly including some of my bladder ssues (?). Luckily I have an appointment with the gyne coming up within the next six months, so I can discuss that with her. Interestingly, no really bad PMDD symptoms yet, three days in.
I would neither be surprised if the hormone stuff needed tweaking, or if I mysteriously became allergic to one of the supposedly-inert ingredients in the birth control pill.
Between hormone shifts and throwing some things at the studio for a fundraiser (mixed/agateware, folks love that) I have some kind of brutal icepick headache on the right side that occasionally subsides for an hour or two when my neck thunks loudly. It's starting to subside a bit after a couple days, thank goodness.
It's important to me to do something thanksgivingy, but I'm in rough shape so I'm not sure what exactly. I woke up this morning wanting to make bread, but that's beyond me right now,
It's thanksgiving weekend. I had a doctor's appointment at the end of last week. There was no paperwork to do, so I decided to focus on a symptom cluster, since last time I talked to her she said she thought it made sense for us to focus on managing symptoms rather than figuring out what was going on.
I've been writing "GI symptoms" on things for awhile, but that has been escalating in the last few months to the point that eating has become pretty torturous, so we talked about that. She's prescribed some things to try, and is going to send me to have my gallbladder ultrasounded. She also recommended some diet stuff, which is of course challenging to implement but at this point I'm spending some time immobilized by stabbing pain and also having trouble lying down or leaning over reliably in the three hours after eating so it's worth spending some of my limited spoons on it.
(I do not really enjoy the term "spoons" because I feel like it leads me into imprecision about what exactly limited resources I'm thinking about, but today I'd rather use the limited resources on solving the problem rather than analyzing what I mean by "spoons". Ha)
I'm also taking a one-week break from the birth control pill I've been taking basically continuously for a couple years, barring the occasional user-error day. As soon as I went off the pill some of my other GI symptoms diminished, lower-abdominal stuff and toilet related stuff, possibly including some of my bladder ssues (?). Luckily I have an appointment with the gyne coming up within the next six months, so I can discuss that with her. Interestingly, no really bad PMDD symptoms yet, three days in.
I would neither be surprised if the hormone stuff needed tweaking, or if I mysteriously became allergic to one of the supposedly-inert ingredients in the birth control pill.
Between hormone shifts and throwing some things at the studio for a fundraiser (mixed/agateware, folks love that) I have some kind of brutal icepick headache on the right side that occasionally subsides for an hour or two when my neck thunks loudly. It's starting to subside a bit after a couple days, thank goodness.
It's important to me to do something thanksgivingy, but I'm in rough shape so I'm not sure what exactly. I woke up this morning wanting to make bread, but that's beyond me right now,
insane fantasy or realistic project?
Oct. 12th, 2025 01:48 pmmoechusInsane fantasy or realistic possibility? (I would appreciate it if people read the whole thing and commented honestly.) Years ago (2005 or 2006?), I started a blogsite, www.allthingshuman.com (name based on the line from Terence: “I regard nothing human as alien to me”). I posted links to news stories on all conceivable subjects (usually with some snarky headline or comment as I currently do on FB), a Poem of the day, a Game of the week (from a database I have of 60,000+ games not available on ChessBase), an occasional essay on something (see https://allthingshuman.com/category/original-content/ for some examples), etc. See https://web.archive.org/web/20250000000000*/www.allthingshuman.com for archived pages. In 2006, I went to the Chess Olympiad in Turin, Italy and live-blogged from there. Before leaving, I promoted the site in the chess media. At one point, I was getting a few dozen (maybe even in the hundreds) daily views. Then the site went dark for nearly a decade. First, it was infected by a virus, then seized by a cybersquatter. Eventually, I got it back and started posting fairly regularly but I never bothered promoting it and never had more than a handful of viewers. I had vague ideas of doing more with it but never executed on them. Then, three years ago, I took a full-time job at a law firm and no longer had the time to do anything with site beyond the occasional post.
Three years later, I definitely need to make some changes. I just turned 67, am working too many hours (and suffering burn-out), not spending enough time with my son and wife, and am just generally exhausted and depressed. Retirement is not an option. I never expected to have a wife and kid and itinerant chess journalist/part time lawyer/legal assistant was enough to live on (barely) but I have no savings and we live paycheck to paycheck.
Which brings me back to allthingshuman. Is it possible to turn this into a second career that would pay the bills? I need to earn $8 to $10k a month to keep the household solvent. Is it conceivable/possible that I could get a thousand people to pay $10 a month for a daily poem, weekly chess game not available elsewhere, occasional essay, news links accompanied by snark, links to unusual occurences, signs from above that defy interpretation, etc.? I could add reviews of books, restaurants, etc. I could maybe offer a monthly or so podcast. I went through my contacts and have several published authors, grandmasters, experts in various fields. If I could persuade a few of them to give me an hour of their time, I could cover, if not all things human, a lot of things from backpacking to finance to hypnosis to science, etc.
Thoughts? Opinions? Advice on how to make it work? Absolutely bonkers or vaguely plausible?
Three years later, I definitely need to make some changes. I just turned 67, am working too many hours (and suffering burn-out), not spending enough time with my son and wife, and am just generally exhausted and depressed. Retirement is not an option. I never expected to have a wife and kid and itinerant chess journalist/part time lawyer/legal assistant was enough to live on (barely) but I have no savings and we live paycheck to paycheck.
Which brings me back to allthingshuman. Is it possible to turn this into a second career that would pay the bills? I need to earn $8 to $10k a month to keep the household solvent. Is it conceivable/possible that I could get a thousand people to pay $10 a month for a daily poem, weekly chess game not available elsewhere, occasional essay, news links accompanied by snark, links to unusual occurences, signs from above that defy interpretation, etc.? I could add reviews of books, restaurants, etc. I could maybe offer a monthly or so podcast. I went through my contacts and have several published authors, grandmasters, experts in various fields. If I could persuade a few of them to give me an hour of their time, I could cover, if not all things human, a lot of things from backpacking to finance to hypnosis to science, etc.
Thoughts? Opinions? Advice on how to make it work? Absolutely bonkers or vaguely plausible?
San Luis Reservoir + Sunflowers
Oct. 11th, 2025 12:52 pmyourlibrarian posting in common_nature
One of my friends left us in San Francisco, while the other one and I drove down to L.A. We passed a lot of nice sights during our crossing of the CA-152 West. Some were entertaining, such as all the garlic farms in Gilroy advertising things like garlic ice cream and garlic honey (also 10 avocados for $1!) Some were just pretty. One was the San Luis reservoir, which was huge.
( Read more... )
Photos: Charleston Food Forest Part 1 Right Side
Oct. 10th, 2025 11:17 pmysabetwordsmith posting in common_natureWe visited the Charleston Food Forest on Thursday, October 9. These pictures are from the front and right side. Continue with Part 2: Left Side, the Coles County Community Garden, and Seeds.
( Walk with me ... )
( Walk with me ... )
(no subject)
Oct. 10th, 2025 11:12 pmsorcyressI am at Pinew-wait no I'm not. But I am on Long Pond! Which is pretty fucking good! I like being in the woods even when they are not quite perfectly ~my~ woods. Also, let's be real, of the crowd of people here, half of them are the camp folks I would most want to be hanging with, and the other half are people who are beloved by the first half. It's good!
Getting here was AN ADVENTURE. It was also slightly more of an adventure than it should've been, because I foolishly trusted SamSam to give me accurate directions to camp. To be fair, they were accurate, they just included a part that they hadn't actually traveled on before and it was...uh...I was not excited to have been the guinea pig for that. It was a "no trespassing" private little back trail that was not wide, mostly rocks, and the parts that weren't rocks was sand. About 80% of it might've been fun if I was riding it on my regular bike without a load.
I was riding my xtracycle, fully packed and loaded. I wasn't, like, at weight capacity or anything, but I did fill the volume pretty well. It's a nice bike but also _no_ it is _absolutely not_ a mountain bike. Yikes.
But the rest of the trip! The paved roads were wonderful! The hills were...okay, the hills were not wonderful *but* except for the being illegally in the woods, I did ace the ride. No walking up anything, no feet on the ground while in motion.
It's certainly the heaviest trip I've done in a long time. Probably since the time I went bike-camping with jere7my? Which I think was in the year I got my new bike which was probably......2012? I should probably go on loaded-bike trips more often, but like, that's part of the point of having a cargo bike! Especially having a cargo bike and the mbta!
Got here near the end of folks eating dinner and joined in and have spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing and drawing in my sketchbook while other people knit (sooooo much knitting happening!). It's very pleasant! I am having a pleasing adventure.
(We'll figure out the getting home bonus challenges when it's actually Monday and I can see how bad the nor'easter actually is) .
So that's my weekend set. Hope y'all are having nice plans as well.
~Sor
MOOP!
Getting here was AN ADVENTURE. It was also slightly more of an adventure than it should've been, because I foolishly trusted SamSam to give me accurate directions to camp. To be fair, they were accurate, they just included a part that they hadn't actually traveled on before and it was...uh...I was not excited to have been the guinea pig for that. It was a "no trespassing" private little back trail that was not wide, mostly rocks, and the parts that weren't rocks was sand. About 80% of it might've been fun if I was riding it on my regular bike without a load.
I was riding my xtracycle, fully packed and loaded. I wasn't, like, at weight capacity or anything, but I did fill the volume pretty well. It's a nice bike but also _no_ it is _absolutely not_ a mountain bike. Yikes.
But the rest of the trip! The paved roads were wonderful! The hills were...okay, the hills were not wonderful *but* except for the being illegally in the woods, I did ace the ride. No walking up anything, no feet on the ground while in motion.
It's certainly the heaviest trip I've done in a long time. Probably since the time I went bike-camping with jere7my? Which I think was in the year I got my new bike which was probably......2012? I should probably go on loaded-bike trips more often, but like, that's part of the point of having a cargo bike! Especially having a cargo bike and the mbta!
Got here near the end of folks eating dinner and joined in and have spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing and drawing in my sketchbook while other people knit (sooooo much knitting happening!). It's very pleasant! I am having a pleasing adventure.
(We'll figure out the getting home bonus challenges when it's actually Monday and I can see how bad the nor'easter actually is) .
So that's my weekend set. Hope y'all are having nice plans as well.
~Sor
MOOP!