pattrose: (Dead Zone TV)
[personal profile] pattrose
22. What is your favourite writing implement – a fountain pen, ballpoint pen, pencil or something else?

A friend of mine gave me a thick retractable pencil that is thick lead. It's a mechanical pencils. I've never seen one before but I love it. I can erase mistakes. Yay! But other then that I use a fine point gel pen. I have four different kinds. And I use legal pads like crazy. And there are post-it notes all over everything. It may be a weird system but it works. Oh the thick pencil is called Paper Mate Handwriting. For 5 of them and extra lead they cost 3.49. Can't beat that.

2026 60 questions meme.

Feb. 21st, 2026 11:36 pm
pattrose: (Default)
[personal profile] pattrose
How do you want to contribute your talents and passions to the world? Who could be touched by you, and how would it affect them?

I'm not sure about this one. My passions are very simple. I love doing fandom things all week. I also love working on my children's books. I have so much to do with them. There are six of them. I do have the art ready, but a lot of work still needs to be done on the stories. I need to make some time.

Who could be touched by you? Well, I believe the children will have the books read to them and that it will make a difference in their lives. My daughter told me that her 2-year-old carries one of my books around and recites it aloud. Her 8-year-old brother reads my first book to her every night. They both love it. You haven't a clue as to how happy that makes me. I hope that the children know how much love went into these books.

I love making moodboards for all different fandoms. I have more fun.

Topics for talk February.

Feb. 21st, 2026 11:17 pm
pattrose: 00 Starfleet Academy 2 (Starfleet Academy 2)
[personal profile] pattrose
Goals For the Next Week:

Clean our walk-in closet. I’ve been talking about it for two months. I’m collecting things for the thrift center. There is so much to put in bags. It’s a charity that helps homeless people get back their lives. It’s one way of helping.

Dinner on Wednesday night with our daughter, Chris and her hubby. We’re going to a steak house. I can’t wait. I love filet mignon. Or maybe I might try the fish. I like to get shrimp or salmon.

Wednesday and Thursday are my days for watching Beverly. She's 89 and just needs a little help. I'm glad to do it. We have great discussions.

Thursday is a medical phone call. I sometimes miss them. I prefer appointments. I never forget them.

On Sunday, we’re having a nice dinner with my daughter and son-in-law. I’m making a new recipe for dinner and dessert. Thankfully I love cooking and baking. Oh that’s on the 1st. Tomorrow I’m making another new recipe for some friends of ours.

I’m getting my hair cut this week. I look frightful. 😂😂

That's about all I have going this week. I didn't mention chores that I do daily because they're boring. If I was rich I'd have. A housekeeper. I hate cleaning. I do it but hubby helps a great deal.

I hope you all have a good Sunday.

James Bond ahoy!

Feb. 21st, 2026 11:31 pm
calzephyr: Scott Pilgrim generator (Default)
[personal profile] calzephyr
We watched a few more James Bond movies from our big DVD set over the Christmas holidays--I'm just woefully behind logging them.

We watched:


  • You Only Live Twice (Bond in Japan)

  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service (with George Lazenby)

  • Diamonds Are Forever (Bond in Las Vegas)

  • Live and Let Die (first movie with Roger Moore)


Out of the four, On Her Majesty's Secret Service was my favourite. George Lazenby really wasn't a bad Bond--and maybe it was the performances of Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas that rounded out the movie so well. George Lazenby brought a bit of softness to Bond, and I was not prepared for the ending!

It goes without saying that these movies seem campy to modern audiences — I wonder if they would have felt campy when they were released. The villains are just a step above being Batman henchmen. You Only Live Twice was pretty cringey and Live and Let Die had us reading up on blaxploitation afterwards. Diamonds Are Forever felt too long, although seeing vintage Vegas was pretty cool! In some ways these movies are travelogues from a time when travel was expensive.

When people complain about some of the stunts in a newer franchise, like Fast & Furious, they're forgetting things like the epic ski chase or boat chase from Bond--both of which seem a little silly today!

The Hunting Party Icons

Feb. 22nd, 2026 01:16 am
flareonfury: (Bex/Jacob)
[personal profile] flareonfury posting in [community profile] fandom_icons
Below are some icons I made as alternates for [community profile] tvmovie20in20 Round 23 and [community profile] ships20in20 Round 5 with The Hunting Party.

[100 icons] The Hunting Party

Preview:



"A secret prison. A killer escape. The hunt is on......"

Daily Happiness

Feb. 21st, 2026 08:47 pm
torachan: cats looking at a crow out the screen door (cats and crow)
[personal profile] torachan
1. So nice to get back to my routine at home. I tried my best to stick to the things I could while away but it's not the same and it's definitely a source of stress.

2. Carla got some frozen char siu fried rice from Trader Joe's and it's really good. Making fried rice from scratch is an easy meal, but I wouldn't mind keeping a bag of this in the freezer for times we feel like something even easier.

3. A moth got in the house the other day and Carla was able to get some really great pics of Ollie when he was laser focused on the moth.

Vocabulary: Bricolage

Feb. 21st, 2026 10:28 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Sunday Word: Bricolage

bricolage [bree-kuh-lahzh, brik-uh-]

noun:
1 a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things.
2 (in literature) a piece created from diverse resources.
3 (in art) a piece of makeshift handiwork.
4 the use of multiple, diverse research methods.


Definitely useful if you like upcycling.

shadowkat: (Default)
[personal profile] shadowkat
Well, I've accomplished a few things at least. Got up early enough to do my knee exercises, eat breakfast, and get distilled water for the humidifier/Nosh Steam Oven, and veggies/fruit, paper towels, and other mildly essential groceries. When I was putting said groceries away, the kitchen light decided to burn out. I notified the super - that it needs to be replaced (I have light bulbs). And transferred the small lamp that I have in the living room to the kitchen. It fits. So it will work for the interim. (Oh to have a ladder and a handy person to fix it - because I can't do it without killing myself. Tempting. But no. Mother would miss me. And knowing me - I wouldn't die, I'd just critically injure myself.)

Finished my taxes (although it cost me more to do them this year than my actual refund, also I have to pay NY State, damn it). tax hell )

It was nice weather today - in the upper thirties and forties, high about 45 degrees F (which is practically balmy considering the temps we've been having in NYC this winter). And the grocery store - was surprisingly sparse, not as many customers as expected, considering a big storm is moving in. (People are procrastinators - so they all probably came late in the day or tomorrow.)

I'm trying not to fret too much about the upcoming hellish winter storm. Breaking Bad warned me, but it didn't register and I didn't get it - I was overwhelmed with work this week - being blind sighted by C leaving. (C tracks everything for us and is my liaison with the project team, also one of the few people I can talk to.) Her last day was Friday. So, I was kind of discombobulated, and recovering from a head cold, so didn't pick up on the fact that a huge winter storm was coming on Sunday night. Figured it out when I got home - and saw the weather report. We're supposed to have blizzard conditions between 1 am and 10 am on Monday. I don't know if I can get to work in that? I walk and take the subways, which are above and below ground?
Read more... )

I really wish the storm hit Friday night into Saturday instead, like last time. When I actually did take Monday off.

Dinner was "shrimp, brussel sprouts, and aspergus in the air fryer" - seasoned with red pepper, teriaki, fauk garlic salt (this is amazing on shrimp and veggies), and Mrs. Dash. (Which I need to get more of at some point.)

Also watched both Destiny and Harm's Way of Angel S5 rewatch. Picked up on the following:

Read more... )

***

Question a Day - February Meme:

18. What is your favourite shellfish dish (if you have one)?

Lobster, preferably with melted butter, and lemon.

19. Have you ever worn false eyelashes or had eyelash extensions?

No. Or not that I recall? I might have - I have a vague memory of trying to do that - and it not working, and being a mess. Makeup and me are kind of unmixy things - particularly eye-makeup. I can do foundation but that's it.

20. Are you a fan of mayonnaise in a sandwich (either egg-based or vegan)?

No.

Read more... )

21. When was the last time you heard music played live (at a concert, in a musical)?

The Broadway musical SMASH this past summer.

I'm not really a live concert person, I'm a live theater person. I like sitting in a seat and watching folks dance, sing, act, and tell a story on stage.

Sunday Word: Bricolage

Feb. 22nd, 2026 03:10 pm
sallymn: (words 6)
[personal profile] sallymn posting in [community profile] 1word1day

bricolage [bree-kuh-lahzh, brik-uh-]

noun:
1 a construction made of whatever materials are at hand; something created from a variety of available things.
2 (in literature) a piece created from diverse resources.
3 (in art) a piece of makeshift handiwork.
4 the use of multiple, diverse research methods.

Examples:

Billed as fiction, this creative-critical work is a bricolage of archival research, colonial histories, transcribed conversations, ghost stories, memoir, epistolary address, reimagined pasts, speculative and suspended futures. (Jenny Hedley, A technology to remember and forget: André Dao’s Anam, Overland, August 2023)

That resourcefulness has developed into an art of exhilarating bricolage, of functioning objects that are greater than the sum of their pieced-together parts. (Andrew Russeth, Tom Sachs: Rocket Man to Renaissance Man, New York Times, July 2022)

This distinction also escapes a number of creative writing researchers who have adapted bricolage as a research methodology. They enumerate the benefits without sufficiently acknowledging the drawbacks, which include superficiality, overgeneralisation and misinterpretation of the theories and practices of other disciplines. (Jeri Kroll, 'The writer as interlocutor: The benefits and drawbacks of bricolage in creative writing research', Journal of writing and writing courses, 2021)

Her bricolage approach to songwriting is fairly obviously that of someone raised with streaming’s decontextualised smorgasbord as their primary source of music. You can hear it in the way she leaps from one source to another, unburdened by considerations of genre or longstanding notions of cool, like someone compiling a personal playlist. (Alexis Petridis, PinkPantheress: Fancy That review – sharp-minded bops hop across pop’s past and present, The Guardian, May 2025)

The system eventually introduced for Big Bang reflected this fragility and contingency of infrastructures: it was the creative result of reshaping legacy devices into a system that did the job for the time being. A band-aid. A product of creative, recombinant bricolage. (Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, Automating Finance: Infrastructures, Engineers, and the Making of Electronic Markets)

Origin:
term used in arts and literature, 'work made from available things,' by 1966, via Lévi-Strauss, from French bricolage, from bricoler 'to fiddle, tinker' and, by extension, 'make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are to hand (regardless of their original purpose),' 16c, from bricole (14c) (Online Etymology Dictionary)

According to French social anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the artist 'shapes the beautiful and useful out of the dump heap of human life.' Lévi-Strauss compared this artistic process to the work of a handyman who solves technical or mechanical problems with whatever materials are available. He referred to that process of making do as bricolage, a term derived from the French verb bricoler (meaning 'to putter about') and related to bricoleur, the French name for a jack-of-all-trades. Bricolage made its way from French to English during the 1960s, and it is now used for everything from the creative uses of leftovers ('culinary bricolage') to the cobbling together of disparate computer parts ('technical bricolage'). (Merriam-Webster)

(no subject)

Feb. 21st, 2026 03:51 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
My daughter “Melody” is in the midst of the terrible twos. Five or more meltdowns per day over normal frustrations/limits are typical. Recently, my mother-in-law, “Darlene” took Melody and my 6-year-old son out to run errands, and true to form, Melody had a blow-up. It was how Darlene handled it that has me seeing red. She told Melody that she was leaving her in the store and that she could find her own way home, and left her screaming on the floor! She then moved off with my son, out of my daughter’s view, and waited for several minutes before coming back for her. I only learned of this later when my son told me what happened.

When I confronted my mother-in-law, she claimed her method was helpful because Melody behaved afterward. And she said Melody was “never in any danger” because she kept her in sight at all times. After this, I no longer feel safe with Darlene going places with the kids without my husband present or me. Sadly, my husband is no help. He agrees that this was a good “lesson” in behaving for our daughter and that his mother used to do it to him and his sister when they were kids! Please tell me I’m right in telling Darlene her days of taking the kids solo are over.
—Pissed


Read more... )

Today's Adventures

Feb. 21st, 2026 08:07 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today we went to the Crimson Market and made a few other stops.

Read more... )

Candy Hearts Reveals

Feb. 22nd, 2026 02:03 pm
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
[personal profile] andraste
I wrote three Candy Hearts treats this year!

Battement d'ailes (750 words) by Andraste
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Red Shoes (1948)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Julian Craster/Victoria Page & Boris Lermontov
Characters: Boris Lermontov, Julian Craster, Victoria Page
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canonical Character Death, Suicide, Candy Hearts treat
Summary:

The beating of wings.

(Or: a The Red Shoes daemonverse AU.)



À la carte (1001 words) by Andraste
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Shock.wav & The Vees
Characters: Shock.wav, Vox (Hazbin Hotel), Valentino (Hazbin Hotel), Velvette (Hazbin Hotel)
Additional Tags: Val is briefly weird about food, Candy Hearts treat
Summary:

Shock.wav is a growing boy dog shark dog thing. Just as well there's always someone around the tower to feed him, whether they meant to or not.



Menuet (1806 words) by Andraste
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Anora Mac Tir/Celene Valmont
Characters: Anora Mac Tir, Celene Valmont
Additional Tags: Accidental First Date, Or Is It?, Candy Hearts treat
Summary:

A map is not the territory.

Or: the diplomatic talks between Ferelden and Orlais that take place during Inquisition take a turn.

Talking Meme Month - day 21

Feb. 21st, 2026 06:37 pm
hafnia: Animated drawing of a flickering fire with a pair of eyes peeping out of it, from the film Howl's Moving Castle. (Default)
[personal profile] hafnia
What is my favorite place in the world?

God. Uh. Hmm.

I want to toss some far-flung locales on here, but I haven't been there in over twenty years and God only knows if they're still nice, so. I guess we'll go with the places I have known well and loved.

It's a toss-up between:

The Salt Lake City Public Library, at least as I remember it circa 2010 (which, God, was a long time ago...!) — I went to a bunch of poetry readings etc here and always loved it and felt very in my element whenever I was there, and the rooftop garden is super neat.

Cape Perpetua, because it's fucking beautiful.

Swan Lake, Montana, because I spent just about every childhood here from the time I was 4 to the time I was 14.

Mesa Verde, because it's just fucking cool.

SF MoMA, because I adore it and have a lot of great memories of visiting different exhibits there (for several years in a row I had business stuff that took me to San Francisco at least once if not twice a year, and I always hit up SF MoMA when I went).

Anyway yes, I am Indecisive, you are welcome :D

Science

Feb. 21st, 2026 08:06 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Scientists just mapped mysterious earthquakes deep inside Earth

Scientists at Stanford have unveiled the first-ever global map of rare earthquakes that rumble deep within Earth’s mantle rather than its crust. Long debated and notoriously difficult to confirm, these elusive quakes turn out to cluster in regions like the Himalayas and near the Bering Strait. By developing a breakthrough method that distinguishes mantle quakes using subtle differences in seismic waves, researchers identified hundreds of these hidden tremors worldwide.

(no subject)

Feb. 21st, 2026 05:48 pm
sistawendy: me standing in front of a giant pair of wings at Burning Man 2007 (Burning Man wings)
[personal profile] sistawendy
Leather dyke munch. Had an agreeable time talking with fellow trans folks. Yes, again. Finally asked B the organizatrix, "Where are all the people over fifty?" She said that she'd been considering throwing an event earlier in the evening for us elders. Sort of like the Hot Flash dance nights an Neighbours, she said, only freakier. Shoot, I'd go. I would have stayed later at B's fundraiser on the other side of CC's, but I had plans for today, namely..

...I took a bus route that was new to me a loooong way south to White Center for my first Burning Man camp meeting this year. In attendance were Burner R (not to be confused with an earlier R's) and [personal profile] leenerella. Neither of them are planning on going to the playa this year, but this wasn't just a meeting for planning for Burning Man; there are other Burner-flavored events various subsets of the crew are going to, some of which I'll be medically unable to attend due to surgery.

It's been eight years since I went, and unlike my last several trips to The Thing In The Desert, I don't have my own vehicle anymore. I've been worried about logistics because how could I not be? R put my transportation fears to rest: the gang is used to carpooling, and has a trailer for moving the vast quantities of gear and infrastructure that we haul into the desert.

As for my smaller worries – camp dues, if any, and gasoline for the inevitable generator, etc. – it's too soon to ask about those. I'll just have to do what doesn't come naturally and take care of those questions later.

But overall, it's an experienced group of people who know what they're doing and also have fun. Hell to the yes. I'm feeling even better about this crew – Astro Shack, by name – than I felt earlier.

Eldest Prince Above fic

Feb. 22nd, 2026 12:58 pm
thawrecka: (Default)
[personal profile] thawrecka posting in [community profile] c_ent
Finding Moments (627 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 长公主在上 | Zhǎng Gōng Zhǔ Zài Shàng (Web Series)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gu Xuanqing/Li Yunzhen
Characters: Gu Xuanqing, Li Yunzhen

(no subject)

Feb. 22nd, 2026 12:57 pm
thawrecka: (Default)
[personal profile] thawrecka
Finding Moments (627 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 长公主在上 | Zhǎng Gōng Zhǔ Zài Shàng (Web Series)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Gu Xuanqing/Li Yunzhen
Characters: Gu Xuanqing, Li Yunzhen

Candy Hearts creator reveals!

Feb. 21st, 2026 05:31 pm
snickfic: (Oasis walkon)
[personal profile] snickfic
A week before the CH deadline, I thought I might have to default on my assignment. I had literally no words and no energy to try to make some. But at the last minute I got a nice, easy, short idea and wrote it in two days, and I was really happy with it. And then somehow in the three days before reveals I wrote two more things! Huh! And also a separate thing for Bulletproof!

for the man who has everything, Oasis RPF, Liam/Noel, 1400 words. 5 times Liam flirted with Noel during the reunion tour, and one time he didn't have to. I WAS NOT going to sign up for CH this year, but a request turned up for Liam/Noel at the very last minute, and I could not possibly refuse. (I've decided that I'm allowed to break my no-signups rule for Oasis requests. It's not like there are lots of them!)

This feels like a spiritual sibling to my vignettes fic from last year, although not in the same continuity. That fic was about their slow relationship rebuild leading up to tour, while this is about rebuilding during the tour, but in both cases it's a lot of short scenes that string together into a bigger whole, relatively sparsely written. This one leans a lot harder on specific canon events, partly because the period during the tour gave us all way more to work with than the period before (which is mostly a total mystery to this day!).

I didn't think I had another of those in me, but once I had the idea the day before the deadline, it all flowed really smoothly. I wrote the last scene and was like "this is way too soppy and cheesy, I'll need to rewrite it," but then I came later to edit and decided it had exactly the right amount of cheese, actually! FEELINGS.

--

14 Capra, Drowning by Numbers (1988), Cissie/Cissie/Cissie/Madgett, 800 words. It happened like this: on a Saturday afternoon, Cissie, Cissie, and Cissie agreed it was time for an experiment.

This movie had been on my radar for a while, I think because I'd seen a Yuletide promo for it? I was motivated to finally watch it when a CH request came up for pinch hit. It's a deeply weird, surrealist meditation on death featuring three women named Cissie and also starring Bernard Hill, and after I finished I was like, "I definitely cannot write fic for this." Then I went to take a shower, had not even gotten into the shower yet when the first line came to me, and I put my clothes back on, sat down, and wrote the whole thing in half an hour.

The fic is partly a "for want of a nail" fix-it of canon, and partly simply a fill for the prompt of the Cissies taking turns with Madgett. I think of all the fic I've written, it's probably one of the least comprehensible for reading canon-blind. I had fun, though, and christened the fandom tag, which is always nice. And the recipient seemed to really like it, which is the most gratifying part of writing something super niche. <3

--

full-service, The Housemaid, Millie/Nina, 2100 words. The obligatory post-canon cunnilingus fic, as you do.

This movie ended with such interesting possibilities for these two, and I knew my friend lioness was requesting them for CH, but what really got me to write this was that there were two entire fics in the fandom tag and neither for this ship. ;___; I wrote it all in a rush over two days, and I think it kind of shows, but I had fun, and maybe people will see the vision and write more of them. I would definitely read more about Millie's post-canon exploits and how her relationship with Nina evolves.

--

tea in the moonlight, The Endless, Aaron/Justin, 1700 words. The red flower knocks Aaron up, with Justin's assistance, and they have to decide what to do about it.

I had about 200 words of this for the Bulletproof tag "complicated but ultimately positive feelings about incestuous mpregnancy," one of maybe half a dozen Bulletproof false starts this year. I didn't think it was going to go anywhere, but after I finished the Housemaid fic, it turned out I still had energy left over, and I wrote the rest of it and posted it that same day.

I didn't end up gifting it to anyone, so as one of exactly twelve fics in the fandom tag, it hasn't gotten much attention. Now I'm kind of second-guessing posting it at all, or at least posting so soon without letting it sit for a while and giving it another editing pass. It's not remotely on the same level as my other Endless fic. OTOH I do really like the weird incesty mpreg feelings in it. IDK.

Bronzed Squids

Feb. 21st, 2026 05:23 pm
olivermoss: (Default)
[personal profile] olivermoss
Finland takes bronze in men's hockey.

Damn, they came so close to taking out Canada and getting silver. Ah, well. Still, we've got squids taking home bronze and they were key players on their teams. Kaapo Kakko scored again.

(Kakko should be one of the Kraken's top scorers, but he was out most of the season with an injury and seemed to have the yips once he got back, was slow to get his groove back. This sidequest may have helped him a bit.)

I didn't watch the game, because I was at a write-in at Steeplejack.

Just in case you had any doubt that beer is a religion in Portland:


Damn, I need to go there with my real camera.

I considered catching the finals tomorrow, more to see the medal ceremony than the game, but the Fins already have their medals? They didn't wait and do them all at once like with the women's game?

Still sad that Finland didn't manage to take out Canada, despite that early lead. Still, some squids got bronze and overall squids had very good showings on their teams. Anyway, here's hoping Canada deletes USA tomorrow. I'm not really attached to Canada or any of their players, I just want USA's first line humiliated if possible. I can dream!
rebeccmeister: (Default)
[personal profile] rebeccmeister
...I decided to defy the upcoming weather forecast, and got started with germinating some tomato and pepper seeds on plant trays at work. I am not yet as systematic as [personal profile] ranunculus about my seed germination methods, but I did take her advice on making/using a "dibbler" to make holes in the soil to drop the seeds into. Mine was just a piece of a bamboo skewer, because that's what I had lying around in my lab.

This will be the second year in a row that I will try and start a whole bunch of different varieties of tomato, and maybe this will be the first year that I actually keep track of where they wind up going in the ground. This strategy was reasonably successful overall last year, although the plant density was a little too high, which resulted in smaller, more spindly plants. I am pretty sure that I know which tomatoes were the big yellow ones that [personal profile] scrottie loved last summer, and the good news is I have tons more seeds for that variety. I don't remember what they're called right this second, because all the seed packets are still at work. But I'm glad to have that underway.

I would like to start some lettuce seeds at home, but have some dilemmas to address first. Previously I set up a wire shelf on the porch for germinating and growing plants, by putting it on top of the door-desk so it got maximal light from the porch windows (and the height was convenient to access). But S wound up wanting the door-desk for extra desk space in his office, so now the wire shelf is back on the floor on the porch and too low down to be a good plant growing station. I was thinking about maybe getting some cinderblocks to elevate it, but today I found that the nearest Ace Hardware franchise doesn't sell cinderblocks, argh, and I don't want to shop at either of the big-box hardware stores if I can help it. So I'm not sure what I'll do on that front yet.

I also finished a jeans alteration project. A number of readers here are familiar with the issue where jeans that fit in the quads don't fit in the waist. Back when I was living in California, I tried sewing my own jeans, but that was a real journey and I don't know that I'll be ever up for that again. So as a compromise, I figured maybe I should try my hand at an alteration.

In the wilds of the Internet, this particular video was one of the better resources demonstrating a pretty good and thorough method for taking in the jeans waist.

My sewing machine was *almost* up for the job, except for the very end where I had to finish sewing on the belt loop by hand because there were just too many layers of denim for my poor sewing machine to manage.

Anyway, here's a picture of my butt so you can admire my handiwork on these jeans:

Tailoring my jeans

It's not perfect but it's pretty darned good! It is 100% worth it to have jeans and pants tailored so they fit well, is all I'm saying.

Check In: Day 21

Feb. 21st, 2026 06:39 pm
glitteringstars: (Default)
[personal profile] glitteringstars posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Hello all and happy Saturday!

I hope today has been an easy day, for writing and for other hobbies! Speaking of words on the page, how well has it gone today?

(no subject)

Feb. 22nd, 2026 11:30 am
thawrecka: (Kate Kane)
[personal profile] thawrecka
Terrible headache and I didn't even drink last night, it's just that people were too loud in the pub. Amazing how you can get symptoms identical to a hangover without alcohol just from being around people yelling for hours.

Recently read: The Woman Dies by Aoka Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton - I picked this up partly because I enjoyed Barton's translation of Butter, and partly because the cover art is so cool. Collection of stories, much of it flash fiction, tacking sexism, gender, technology, the media, etc. A lot funnier than I expected. The titular story, which is my favourite, is incisive about sexist cliches in the movies, but also has a very funny conversation about vaginas. I feel like this is best read all at once, because so many threads are picked up repeatedly in multiple stories (the Japanese national anthem jokes, for example), and it has a great rhythm that way, so I'm glad I read it all at once. I had a great time with this.

Currently reading: Lord of Mysteries: The Clown, Part 1 by Cuttlefish that Loves Diving - I'm 44 chapters in and really enjoying myself. There's some things the animated series glossed over but that the novel goes into more depth on, so the world feels even more textured. I'm most delighted by how sneaky Klein is, and how awkward all his interactions with Leonard are, but there's a lot to enjoy. I like that this has more on the tarot club, and I'm amused by Audrey and her large dog.

Yen Press doesn't seem to list a translator anywhere in the book, but I can believe there is a human translator because there are so many clunky adverbs. When did adverbs stop being considered bad writing, my guys? Maybe I'm out of touch on this, because I see them so often in published fiction these days (especially in translated fiction), and they always annoy me.

DNF: The Moon Glow Bookshop by Dongwon Seo, translated by Shanna Tan - the idea of a bar that sells drinks that tell stories is fun, but the prose in the translation is so clunky and surface, with no real subtext or interesting description, no depth or texture, that I just can't push myself forward.

Weekly Reading

Feb. 21st, 2026 04:24 pm
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[personal profile] torachan
Recently Finished
The Reyes Incident
I think I got this on some sort of ebook sale. It feels like the sort of thing where I'd be like "well, it's free or just a dollar, so I'll take a chance". It wasn't great, though. Interesting premise about a woman who comes to the police station with a story of killer mermaids who ate her friends. The writing just wasn't great, though.

Another Appalachia
Memoir about a queer Indian woman who grew up in West Virginia, where her dad had taken a job as a company doctor for one of the chemical companies there in the 70s. I liked this.

A Skinful of Shadows
Set in the 1600s during the English civil war, the MC is the bastard of a powerful family who all have the ability to see ghosts and host them inside themselves. When her mother dies, she is taken in by the family, who it turns out, like to keep bastards close in the event that they need a ghost host, becaue the currently living members of the family are all host to multiple ghosts each, of dead family members. In some cases the host is too weak and becomes completely taken over by the ghosts. This was a neat premise and an enjoyable read. I have never not liked anything by Francis Hardine that I've read, and this was no exception.

Paying the Land
Non-fiction graphic novel about First Nations people in the Northwest Territories. The author is white, but he spent a lot of time interviewing people and it's basically like an illustrated interview. Very interesting.

Hen na E vol. 4

Ojisama to Neko vol. 16
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The below icons are for [community profile] ships20in20 Round 5 with The Hunting Party various ships.

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The hunt is on......

Resolution

Feb. 21st, 2026 11:33 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Like D, I have been telling all the canvassers who come to the door that I'll vote for whoever has the best chance of beating Reform, but I am relieved that now the constituency-level polling indicates that it's more likely to be the Greens than Labour, because I really didn't want to have to hold my nose and vote for Labour. I'm a trans disabled immigrant and they went through a phase last year of trying to make things more difficult for every single one of those groups of people.

And I do like the points the Greens in the person of Zack Polanski are making, particularly in their most recent party political broadcast. (With one note: I have very strong feelings about "make X Y again" constructions of any kind these days, but I'm grudgingly willing to make an exception for "make hope normal again" despite how loaded "hope" and "normal" are as the X and Y in this case!)

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