Timing

Jun. 8th, 2025 07:06 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
I swung by Old Goat Books to pick up a book I ordered, which meant I was in the right place at the right time hear the confused customer next to me ask "What's speculative fiction?" Which, after I explained what it meant, was followed by the question. "Do you know anything about Andre Norton?"

It was only with great effort that I resisted shouting "BEHOLD! I AM Marshall McLuhan" before helping.

The Heirs of Babylon by Glen Cook

Jun. 8th, 2025 09:18 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A decrepit fleet sails from Germany to play its role in a futile war, crewed by sailors who seem more eager to kill each other than the perfidious Australians.

The Heirs of Babylon by Glen Cook

The Shelves

Jun. 7th, 2025 09:20 pm
azurelunatic: Operation 'This will most likely end badly' is a go. (end badly)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
I got the standards and brackets for that shelf system, and we are currently at Home Depot, after buying what I sincerely hope is the right configuration of board feet for eight shelves. It's secured to the roof and we're using surface streets.

It's too close to bedtime to start on repair plating the 8 foot boards to the 2 foot boards, probably.

Nebula winners announced

Jun. 7th, 2025 11:15 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Best Novel: Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia UK)

Best Novella: The Dragonfly Gambit, A.D. Sui (Neon Hemlock)

Best Novelette: Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being, A.W. Prihandita (Clarkesworld 11/24)

Short Story: Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole, Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld 2/24)

Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction: The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts, Vanessa Ricci-Thode (self-published)

Best Game Writing: A Death in Hyperspace, Stewart C Baker, Phoebe Barton, James Beamon, Kate Heartfield, Isabel J. Kim, Sara S. Messenger, Naca Rat, Natalia Theodoridou, M. Darusha Wehm, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Infomancy.net)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Dune: Part Two by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve (Warner Bros)

Kevin O'Donnell, Jr Special Service Award: C.J. Lavigne

One column, two letters

Jun. 7th, 2025 06:44 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Link

1. Dear Care and Feeding,

I work from home. My kids are 8 and 12. When they were little, we hired a sitter to watch them on the random days off from school, but they don’t really need a sitter now.

For holidays when they are off and I’m working, my husband and I agreed to a set of rules for them: If the kids help with two small chores, read for 30 minutes, and play outside all before noon, then they can have screen time. The kids reluctantly agreed to this policy.

But they still demand my time. They will complete the list above, then ask to FaceTime with a grandparent (a clever loophole). They come into my office whining that they are bored. They are old enough to help themselves to snacks, but if I don’t supervise, they will eat everything before lunch. I make and serve lunch. Even after lunch, they play on their tablets and mindlessly snack. If they ate everything earlier, they come to my office whining for more snacks.

I feel like my husband is taking advantage of my work-from-home job. I feel like my work and time come second to his. I would like to have a full day off the weekend after one of the school holidays. A day when no one asks me for food or entertainment or a ride somewhere. A day when I’m not picking up after everyone. I don’t need a spa day; I need a day to myself. My husband says that’s not fair because his job doesn’t have working from home as an option, and I can’t just “quit parenting for a day.”

—Holidays Are Not Days Off


Read more... )

**********


2. Dear Care and Feeding,

When should I let my daughter learn lessons on her own? My daughter “Chloe” is 12 years old. She recently went with her two closest friends to the zoo. She really wanted to wear a summer dress and white sandals and tried to leave the house without wearing sunscreen.

I talked to Chloe and made her go wearing sunscreen, and also shoes that would be better for walking on the dirt paths at the zoo (I couldn’t change her mind about the dress, so I picked my battles). But I’m not sure I like doing that.

She’s 12 now, and none of the consequences would have been disastrous. The next time something like this comes up, should I just let her make her mistakes and experience the consequences?

—When to Intervene


Read more... )
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Pay Dirt,

Our next-door neighbors were really welcoming when we first moved into our new home. Within weeks, though, they started complaining that our son was too loud and that he was “bothering” their dogs. He’s 5 years old and rambunctious, and he’s attracted to furry animals, which makes it really hard to keep him away from fun, furry floofs!

We tried talking it out with our neighbors, but they lodged a complaint with our HOA, presented us with a massive bill for repainting their fence after our son drew on it with chalk, and twice called the police because he was “trespassing” on their property (he entered their garden uninvited to play with their dogs).

We’re at our wits end. We are seriously considering selling up and moving, as we can’t reasonably expect a child to forever remain indoors. But it will result in a loss we cannot afford.

Is there any way to fix this situation? We feel like we’re being bullied out of our home, but our neighbors are operating well within the law and their rights.

—Homewrecker


Read more... )
isis: (squid etching)
[personal profile] isis
Paul Krugman talks with Ada Palmer about her new (nonfiction) book Inventing the Renaissance. I came at this from the Krugman side (he's a Nobel-winning economist who used to write for the NYT, and I subscribe to his substack) but I figured some of you would be interested from the Palmer side (I never got into Terra Ignota, though). I found it really interesting! I read the transcript, but there's a link to the video conversation as well.

Speaking of Nobelists, a v. v. srs study found that countries with greater per capita chocolate consumption produce more Nobel laureates - so eating chocolate makes you smarter, right? :-)
neotoma: My Glitch Avatar, with brown skin, purple hair, and cat ears (Glitch)
[personal profile] neotoma
Three quarts of strawberries, 3 pints of sweet cherries, a pint of sugar peas, locally grown brown rice, locally grown polenta, large soft pretzel, gruyere-bacon pastry wheel, lemon tart, fennel plant, dill plant, zinnia, cilantro, basil (all three plants given away by the local Master Gardeners group).

I guess I'm making strawberry jam this weekend.

May 2025 in Review

Jun. 6th, 2025 09:41 pm
rowyn: (studious)
[personal profile] rowyn
 Health & Fitness

I exercised the first eight days of May: two times at the community center gym, while the rest were either unpacking-related or pacing while on the phone. Then on May 10, I came down with COVID (caught from my dad, who caught it from his poker buddies.) 

On May 11, Mom also came down with COVID, and at 2AM on May 12, she fell on her way to the bathroom and broke her leg.

Between all of that, I didn't do any more exercising for the rest of May. COVID was weird. I never felt very sick. I had a sore throat for a while. It was mostly gone after several days and I went back to drinking caffeine-free Diet Coke instead of strawberry-watermelon drink mix. Then a few days after that, I switched back to drink mix because my throat felt a little not-right. It wasn't exactly sore, but soda did not feel good going down. I am still having drink mix instead of soda, though I stopped warming it up a week or so ago. (Now I make it cold, with filtered water from the fridge and crushed ice.) My throat doesn't bother me at all but I feel like it would bother me if I drank soda, so I haven't. I like the strawberry-watermelon drink mix pretty well, and the nice dietitian Lut saw a year ago recommended flavored drink mixes over soda. I had a significant amount of fatigue that lingered along with a little congestion and a little cough and the barely-noticable sore throat. So I was like 90% recovered after four days and then stayed at 90% for a week and a half, and then upgraded to 95%. By the end of May, I'd reached 99%, with just the barely-noticable throat thing remaining.

Eating habits have been reasonable by my standards. Mom often wants a sub, and I get one whenever she does, so technically I'm eating a lot of restaurant food. But sub sandwiches are fine as restaurant food goes; I get a bit of veggies on them and they're not particularly fatty, nor large; I'll eat half of an 8" sub for lunch and have the other half for dinner (unless my father eats it for dinner first). No worse than the usual foods I eat. I also ate more frozen vegetables at home this month.

Dailies

I did well with these until I got sick, and then stopped using them again. May 11 through May 23 is just blank. Once again, with the new month, I've started using them again.

Writing

I basically did no new writing in May. Like two hundred words added to The Secret Dragon, up 39,604, I'm guessing. (I haven't done much writing so far in June, either, but I forgot to check where I was at the start of the month. Didn't work on the soloRPG at all.

The Business of Writing

I renamed Be That Way to The Kitty Coffee Pack (which also may not last as a title) and made progress on edits. I got it to 40% complete by the end of May. My goal for the month was 50%, so I missed it, but with everything else going on this month, 40% is pretty great.

Art 

I drew a few times in June, finishing one small (6"x6") marker picture of Koysko from The Secret Dragon, and starting a similarly small picture of Strikvi from the same story. Art ranked at the bottom of things to do this month, so it's amazing I did any of it.

Reading

More big chunks of unfinished manwha. I re-read some of my own books for comfort, but no books by other people.

Lyric update

Lyris has adjusted to her new home pretty well. She likes to hang out in the garage. At first, I thought garage was her Substitute Outside. But it has since struck me that the detached garage at my old house was a favorite hangout of hers, too. It was very common for her to emerge from it when I called for her to come in after a few hours. Perhaps even more common than hanging out on the porch. Maybe she just likes garages.

She got outside once, when Mom let her into the garage without realizing I'd accidentally left the outer door open. I came home when Mom let me know, and Lyric came running to me as soon as she heard me calling for her. Since then, she hasn't tried to get outside; she no longer mews at the door, or comes running when it opens, or runs in front of me when I approach a door, hoping to get out when I open it. I keep an eye on her when Dad and I leave the house, because there'd be plenty of time for a cat to get out, but she just watches us from the living room.

So while I still feel like it'd be nice to have a screened-in porch for her, I'm not sure she needs it. Also, I asked the HOA about a catio and the rep was like "NO CATIO. But MAYBE you can have a screened porch. First you need to read this 80 page document and figure out what in it is relevant and complete this form asking for approval from some number of neighbors and then we'll think about whether or not we'll allow it."

I don't even want to read the 80 page doc and I definitely do not want to wander the neighborhood stalking neighbors to get them to sign the form. Dad has a poker buddy who's involved with the HOA; I may ask him at some point if there's a way to make this process less onerous than it appears. But between the cost, the bureaucracy, and Lyric's increased tolerance of life as an indoor cat, I'm leaning towards letting the whole thing slide.

Goal Scorecard for May

  • Provide care for parents: This has been A Lot. Dad is low-maintenance, thank goodness. The home health aide is mostly important for ensuring he gets showered; he's pretty self-sufficient on other daily tasks. Mom was in the hospital for nine days and is now in a skilled nursing facility. I've visited her every day but one (when I was too exhausted from COVID and poor sleep to feel safe driving). I've been bringing her food most days (she won't eat the institutional food), and doing what I can to make her more comfortable and promote her recovery. (Sometimes those goals do not go together.) She hasn't been able to walk since her leg broke; she's not allowed to put weight on it and she's not strong enough to support herself with her arms and one leg. So therapy is doing what they can to improve her mobility.
  • Pay May bills: Done!
  • Call Ting to cancel second phone line: the magic of goal list works again: this is done.
  • Complete at least 50% of final edits: Not done, but honorable mention for making it to 40%
  • Register with the HOA: Done
  • Find out HOA approval process for catio: Done and bleh.
  • Attempt to get DMV appointment: Done! On the second attempt, I even succeeded at getting an appointment!

Stretch Goals:

A bit surprisingly, I did none of these. I mean, yeah, it was a busy month. But usually I get some random stretch goal done anyway.

June Goals

  • Provide care for parents
  • Pay June bills
  • Complete 70% of edits on The Kitty Coffee Pack
  • Find out what I need to do to register car in new state
  • Make podiatry appointment for Dad
June Stretch Goals
  • Write 10,000+ words on The Secret Dragon
  • Finish edits on The Kitty Coffee Pack
  • Publish The Kitty Coffee Pack
  • Play more of romance soloRPG
  • Exercise 15+ times (organizing stuff/cleaning counts as exercise)
  • Track what I read
  • Keep up on my Dreamwidth feed
  • Ask Bookbub for a Featured Deal and run another ad campaign for a book
  • Get backmatter updated for whatever book I promote
  • Pick an old picture to redraw
  • Do some art
  • Sell mom's car (I do not expect to do this until Mom is home and I don't really expect her to come home until July, at this point. But I want this to stay on the list so I don't forget about it entirely.)
  • Register car

Numamushi by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh

Jun. 6th, 2025 09:09 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A foundling boy raised by a great snake becomes intrigued by a reclusive calligrapher living near the river snake and boy call home.

Numamushi by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


This sequel to one of my favorite books of last year, a young adult post-apocalypse novel with a lovely slow-burn gay romance, fell victim to a trope I basically never like: the sequel to a romance that starts out by breaking up the main couple or pitting them against each other. It may be realistic but I hate it. If the main thing I liked about the first book was the main couple's dynamic - and if I'm reading the sequel, that's definitely the case - then I'm never going to like a sequel where their dynamic is missing or turns negative. I'm not saying they can't have conflict, but they shouldn't have so much conflict that there's nothing left of the relationship I loved in the first place.

This book starts out with Jamison and Andrew semi-broken up and not speaking to each other or walking on eggshells around each other, because Andrew wants to stay in the nice post-apocalyptic community they found and Jamison wants to return to their cabin and live alone there with Andrew. Every character around them remarks on this and how they need to just talk to each other. Eventually they talk to each other, but it resolves nothing and they go on being weird about each other and mourning the loss of their old relationship. ME TOO.

Then half the community's children die in a hurricane, and it's STILL all about them awkwardly not talking to each other and being depressed. I checked Goodreads, saw that they don't make up till the end, and gave up.

The first book is still great! It didn't need a sequel, though I would have enjoyed their further adventures if it had continued the relationship I loved in the first book. I did not sign up for random dead kids and interminable random sulking.
wychwood: Fraser is alone in a corridor holding his hat (due South - Fraser alone with his hat)
[personal profile] wychwood posting in [community profile] girlmeetstrouble
Picking up until [personal profile] aella_irene can resurface!

Chapter 11 )

Chapter 12 )

The atmosphere of menace is somewhat lighter in these chapters. I did enjoy the description of the bath! And also all the flowers around the border post. Also nice to read about immigration officials who are, while not able to help Christie, also not bullying or unpleasant; of course, being an upper-middle-class white woman in the Middle East of this era probably helps a lot, but it's a bit of a contrast to most of the stories you hear these days - no one even handcuffs Christie and deports her to a random third country! Amazing.

Charles is still being mysterious, but actually I didn't think his letter was too bad - I didn't blame her for being annoyed, but it felt like that was more about the situation than his specific choices. Her dad was also quite reasonable, and entirely willing to validate her annoyance even while he also wanted her to stay put! Something is Up, and I suspect he has guessed more of it than Christie has yet.

But what a frustrating cliffhanger! Tune in next time to find out more, maybe??
altamira16: A sailboat on the water at dawn or dusk (Default)
[personal profile] altamira16
Britney Griner is 6'9". At the beginning of this book, she is rushing with her bags out the door to catch a plane to Russia to play basketball. She forgot some nearly empty vapes in her bag, and that leads to being incarcerated in Russia for nine months. Her passport is confiscated at the airport. She is moved to pretrial detention, and she has to return to court over and over until trial and sentencing.

Because she is such a tall person, nothing fits. Her legs hang off the end of the bed until they make a bed that is the correct size for her. The gulag uniforms don't fit until she has a seamstress who makes her a new one.

After reading this and To Build a Castle by Vladimir Bukovsky, I am pretty sure that to survive your time in a Russian gulag, you are just supposed to take up chain smoking. It is mandatory.

She lost nearly thirty pounds while in the gulag.

Her wife Cherelle, the WNBA, and others advocated for her release, and it was great to see the love of the community shine through. But in Russia, lesbianism seems to be treated like a mental disorder so everyone is incredulous that she has a wife.

Her wife was finishing law school and attempting to pass the bar exam while advocating for Griner's release.

I thought that this book was really well done, and the warmth of Griner and her community balanced out the part about being in a Russian gulag.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
When a woman looked around her for her husband, who had been right behind her on the stairs but was now nowhere to be seen. I was very worried I was facing a repeat of the time not too long ago when I spent an hour looking for a missing patron.

The missing husband turned out not to have been behind his wife on the stairs after all, so mystery solved. The missing patron I spent that hour looking for was found once I thought about where she had to be to have not been found where we looked: row H or J, somewhere near seat 26.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


An arduous journey in a prince's entourage offers a courier escape from immediate, judicial danger, at the cost of an entirely different assortment of dangers.


The Witch Roads (The Witch Roads, volume 1) by Kate Elliott

Profile

kaylarudbek: Justice seated in the heavens with open eyes and an uplifted sword (Default)
kaylarudbek

June 2025

S M T W T F S
123 4 567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 13th, 2025 12:56 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios