and i heard about the twister that lives inside your heart
May. 12th, 2026 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
musesfool
Things, and also, stuff:
- NEW DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL TODAY!!! 🙌 🙌 🙌
- I did cancel the expensive hardcover in favor of the kindle edition and stupidly didn't think to check when the ebook actually becomes available. At midnight last night, I was refreshing my order page but the book was not yet available. A quick search revealed that Amazon releases things at midnight Pacific time, which I guess makes sense considering the location of their headquarters, and it saved me from staying up past my bedtime reading, but I was a little disappointed.
- Needless to say, not a whole lot of work got done today because I was READING. Luckily, I only had one meeting and that meeting doesn't require written notes, so...I answered emails and teams chats, but was otherwise glued to the book. ( minor spoiler from early on ) I'm sure I will have much more to say once I'm done reading. *g*
- Speaking of DCC, I learned the other day that the Avs' goalie, Wedgewood, is a fan (apparently he is a BookTok-er? or something?) and also last month, the Avs did a DCC-themed pet adoption night at which their mascot dressed up as Carl and all the potential adoptees were named after characters in the books. I can only imagine what the majority of people in that arena, who probably haven't read the books, thought was happening.
- Speaking of hockey, I am now kind of torn between rooting for the Habs and the Sabres, mostly because of Martin St Louis and being reminded about Mother's Day 2014 and also that if the Habs won it all there would be no White House invite to be grossed out by. I still think it's going to be Canes vs Avs in the end, and I guess I'd be rooting for the Canes, but that is a very unappealing final, imo.
- Once hockey is done, I will be able to catch up on SO MUCH TV: new seasons of Deadloch, For All Mankind, and Paradise, plus that surprise episode of The Bear that dropped last week and that new season (coming June 25th!), plus I still haven't watched s2 of Andor or Poker Face, and there's a new season of My Life Is Murder, as well! And I need to catch up on Abbott Elementary, too, and finish my Orphan Black rewatch. It is a lot!
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- NEW DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL TODAY!!! 🙌 🙌 🙌
- I did cancel the expensive hardcover in favor of the kindle edition and stupidly didn't think to check when the ebook actually becomes available. At midnight last night, I was refreshing my order page but the book was not yet available. A quick search revealed that Amazon releases things at midnight Pacific time, which I guess makes sense considering the location of their headquarters, and it saved me from staying up past my bedtime reading, but I was a little disappointed.
- Needless to say, not a whole lot of work got done today because I was READING. Luckily, I only had one meeting and that meeting doesn't require written notes, so...I answered emails and teams chats, but was otherwise glued to the book. ( minor spoiler from early on ) I'm sure I will have much more to say once I'm done reading. *g*
- Speaking of DCC, I learned the other day that the Avs' goalie, Wedgewood, is a fan (apparently he is a BookTok-er? or something?) and also last month, the Avs did a DCC-themed pet adoption night at which their mascot dressed up as Carl and all the potential adoptees were named after characters in the books. I can only imagine what the majority of people in that arena, who probably haven't read the books, thought was happening.
- Speaking of hockey, I am now kind of torn between rooting for the Habs and the Sabres, mostly because of Martin St Louis and being reminded about Mother's Day 2014 and also that if the Habs won it all there would be no White House invite to be grossed out by. I still think it's going to be Canes vs Avs in the end, and I guess I'd be rooting for the Canes, but that is a very unappealing final, imo.
- Once hockey is done, I will be able to catch up on SO MUCH TV: new seasons of Deadloch, For All Mankind, and Paradise, plus that surprise episode of The Bear that dropped last week and that new season (coming June 25th!), plus I still haven't watched s2 of Andor or Poker Face, and there's a new season of My Life Is Murder, as well! And I need to catch up on Abbott Elementary, too, and finish my Orphan Black rewatch. It is a lot!
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(no subject)
May. 12th, 2026 06:15 pmconuly posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
agonyauntDear Eric: When my family's children were young, they mostly traveled the 200 miles to visit for holidays. Now the children are older, and have jobs, friends et cetera. The parents now seem to expect us to do the traveling. We are in our late 70s, and this is getting harder to do.
The change in beds, food, schedules and houses put a toll on our physical body that takes days to recover. This seems hard for them to understand as they haven’t reached this stage.
We now are faced with missing holidays with them to comply with their demands. I have faced the possibility of loneliness that older people seemingly endure nowadays. Is there an answer to this problem or must I endure pain and trauma to see family in older age?
– Sad, Lonely and In Pain
( Read more... )
The change in beds, food, schedules and houses put a toll on our physical body that takes days to recover. This seems hard for them to understand as they haven’t reached this stage.
We now are faced with missing holidays with them to comply with their demands. I have faced the possibility of loneliness that older people seemingly endure nowadays. Is there an answer to this problem or must I endure pain and trauma to see family in older age?
– Sad, Lonely and In Pain
( Read more... )
Agent building
May. 12th, 2026 08:02 pmqueen_ypolitaLast week, work announced they're giving everyone access to more Microsoft 365 AI tools, not just the basic Copilot chat we've had for a while (on the other hand, they're also telling developers they will have to plan their AI use better going forward, because pricing is changing). I didn't really plan it that way, but I've spent the best part of the three working days figuring out if I can set up a Copilot chat agent to do anything useful for me. I don't really spend that much time in Word, Powerpoint, or Excel to benefit the AI tooling inside them, and I'm also not on calls to constantly need AI tooling in Teams. So I started with one of my workflows that currently involves mind-numbing amounts of copy-pasting, but it looks like I'll need to be doing a lot of set-up work to get somewhere useful, but so far it looks like there's promise there.
Then I spent some time on something I hadn't really planned, but that came up as an idea in a meeting on Monday. If we hadn't just got access to these tools, it wouldn't have been something I could have suggested doing, and I'm not sure it'll really work, but it was an idea worth exploring, so I wanted to give it a go. And it was interesting to work on it as well.
Then I spent some time on something I hadn't really planned, but that came up as an idea in a meeting on Monday. If we hadn't just got access to these tools, it wouldn't have been something I could have suggested doing, and I'm not sure it'll really work, but it was an idea worth exploring, so I wanted to give it a go. And it was interesting to work on it as well.
But the neiges d'antan melt and stir dull roots with spring rain
May. 12th, 2026 07:10 pmoursin(Mix and shake that metaphor and pour it over ice and serve it up with a wee paper umbrella!)
Somebody today on Another Site was mourning the Old Days on LJ which made me think of:
All the various Old Days in my life on and offline which were by their nature transient -
- but that transient didn't mean that they didn't have lasting effects/influence.
(I will spare dr rdrz accounts of various short-lived initiatives I encountered among the archives and in the course of Mi Researchez which nonetheless echoed down the years.)
Also that even had things not fallen out the way things did with LJ (hiss, boo, etc) by now it would almost certainly not be the same experience as it was in the 00s - people would have come, people would have gone, our interests and energies would have changed....
So we would probably be nostalgically regetting the glory days before [whenever].
Social Q's: One Day, It May Be a Yes
May. 12th, 2026 11:38 amkatiedid717 posting in agonyauntI am a social person. But increasingly, I have little time to socialize. I have two young children and a demanding job. Still, some friends text me frequently, even though I reply concisely and keep refusing their kind invitations. Should I be firmer — maybe start ignoring texts?
BUSY MOM
I once had a boss who, like you, was a busy working mother. She taught me a valuable lesson for managing social interactions on text and email: Do not become hostage to your phone or feel compelled to respond to every message as it arrives. Once or twice a day, spend 15 or 20 minutes responding to all of them — and don’t worry about them again until the next time. It beats telling friends to stop texting.
EDIT: LW provided more info in the comments
I am Busy Mom, LW #4. I just want to clarify something.
In my email to Philip, I used the word "acquaintances," not "friend." The texts I am referring to are from former coworkers, parents of my kids' old friends who now attend different schools, etc. - people I really don't know very well.
I know I should count my blessings, and I do appreciate that people are reaching out, but I truly feel overwhelmed by the number of texts I get from these acquaintances. There are a few former co-workers who text me all the time just to chat and "stay in touch," and I truly do not have as much time for them as they have for me. I'm genuinely wondering if it's better to "ghost" them and stop replying, or to say I don't have the capacity right now.
I'm not sure if other young(ish) parents can relate, but parenting right now feels like a constant barrage of communications - medical appointment reminders, school and after-school emails, parent chat groups, parent-teacher meeting updates, mom WhatsApp groups, neighborhood Signal chats, school log-in systems with updates from teachers, I am completely and utterly overwhelmed with information overload. I get so much textual messaging across so many different platforms, it honestly stresses me out, and I can't keep track of everything.
BUSY MOM
I once had a boss who, like you, was a busy working mother. She taught me a valuable lesson for managing social interactions on text and email: Do not become hostage to your phone or feel compelled to respond to every message as it arrives. Once or twice a day, spend 15 or 20 minutes responding to all of them — and don’t worry about them again until the next time. It beats telling friends to stop texting.
EDIT: LW provided more info in the comments
I am Busy Mom, LW #4. I just want to clarify something.
In my email to Philip, I used the word "acquaintances," not "friend." The texts I am referring to are from former coworkers, parents of my kids' old friends who now attend different schools, etc. - people I really don't know very well.
I know I should count my blessings, and I do appreciate that people are reaching out, but I truly feel overwhelmed by the number of texts I get from these acquaintances. There are a few former co-workers who text me all the time just to chat and "stay in touch," and I truly do not have as much time for them as they have for me. I'm genuinely wondering if it's better to "ghost" them and stop replying, or to say I don't have the capacity right now.
I'm not sure if other young(ish) parents can relate, but parenting right now feels like a constant barrage of communications - medical appointment reminders, school and after-school emails, parent chat groups, parent-teacher meeting updates, mom WhatsApp groups, neighborhood Signal chats, school log-in systems with updates from teachers, I am completely and utterly overwhelmed with information overload. I get so much textual messaging across so many different platforms, it honestly stresses me out, and I can't keep track of everything.
Game of Thrones of Ice And Fire
May. 11th, 2026 03:29 pmlannamichaelsI have been reading Game of Thrones fic (and
Apparently I've been pronouncing Baratheon wrong all these years?
This is just like the whole Patreon thing all over again, isn't it. I always thought it was "pa-TRAY-on", and apparnetly everyone else in the world calls it "pay-tree-on".
And now we've got "bear-ah-they-on", which is actually (????) "ba-rath-ee-on". Oh. All rightie then.
So on that note, here are three GOT WIP recs:
- The Songs and the Stories, the Lies and the Glories by
leupagus. Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen/Duncan the Tall. Come for the loyalty kink, stay for the loyalty kink. Just truly an incredible amount of loyalty kink. Baelor lives and becomes king and is doing his best not to fall into bed with Duncan, and when they do get in bed, not have sex. Because it would be such a bad idea to do it. Even though they both want it. A lot.
Can be read without knowing a single bit of canon for this spin-off or which Targayren is which. - Life and Honor by
- Scarlet Woman by
This in contrast to other GOT fics where the characters are like "I need to get rid of Tywin, I don't care how many people need to die or suffer for me to do it, my one single enemy, the only problem in the world, is Tywin, and the only way I can kill him is by killing a lot of people who aren't the problem in order to get to him" and that's treated as understandable, a good thing to do. Oh, you have to go to war in order to protect Jon Snow from Tywin? It's morally justifiable to kill uncounted numbers of people, just because you need to get rid of The Big Bad, when The Big Bad does not have magical powers, is not super powered, he's just very very rich and well connected? You decide to create a war to get rid of this guy, a war that you could easily lose, just for Tywin Lannister? In a universe where there are magical assassins???? Two kinds of magical assassins, actually, I think????
And so then you have this fic, where Lysa decides to get rid of Tywin in revenge for him raping her (yeah, I didn't copy the pairing tag because I don't really consider it the pairing of the fic), but she has to do it in a way that 1) Tywin will die knowing she's the instrument of his downfall but, 2) no one else knows that she had anything to do with it. And she goes about it in a horrifying horrible way. But. At no point is this decision justified as being moral or the right thing to do. Because Lysa isn't moral and she's doing the right thing for herself as she'd decided it, to protect her own power.
Well, minuses and pluses I suppose
May. 11th, 2026 07:30 pmoursinHaving spent a fair amount of time last week finally doing some prep for forthcoming talk on condomz - well, at least pulling together existing visuals from former presentations and digging up a few fresh items to create suitable slides - get message that advance bookings are being very laggardly (apparently a problem with event programme generally?) and they may have to cancel.
SIGH, though I feel this is not lost work and may very well come in useful at some time.
And of course they may not have to cancel, bookings may pick up I suppose.
In rather more cheery news, a little while ago I bopped off an enquiry to The Academic Press with which I published The Co-authored Volume, since I have not heard from them for many a year, and in spite of the fact that lo, 'tis over twenty years now since it burst upon the world, it is still in print. (And still getting cited, yay.)
And I must say their website was a bit of a nightmare to navigate and I ended up sending a plaintive message to a very generic enquiry email as I could not find any other relevant one to apply to.
Behold, I have heard from an Accounts person that they sent a cheque to Former Workplace in 2020 (hah!) which was never cashed, surprise - what between lockdown and the various staff upheavals I was not at all astonished to hear this - but they have now sent me a statement of the royalties accruing (a very modest sum) and asking for my bank details.
Which is better than a bat in the eye with a burnt stick, do admit.
(I am not sure whether the royalties match up to the amounts earned for the same work via the Authors' Licensing and Copyright Society over the same period, but I am not sure that I am massively motivated to check.)
they're in trouble going forward
May. 10th, 2026 06:59 pmmusesfoolYesterday, I made both these and these lemon cupcakes. I did both with a whisk and I liked that they didn't require the stand mixer.
The first ones were quite different than a typical lemon cupcake recipe - they had ricotta and honey in them, and I used this fancy lemon honey I had and I think that was a mistake. The cupcakes domed brilliantly, but had a weird aftertaste I did not like and the only thing I can think that could cause it was that honey. I otherwise used sour cream instead of creme fraiche, and olive oil for vegetable oil, but neither of those things should have caused the weird aftertaste. So maybe I'll eventually work my way back to that recipe (chosen because I have ricotta in my fridge that needs using up) and use clover honey and see how they are.
I think the second recipe is going to be my go-to for lemon for now. The batter is a super weird texture - it looked like curdled custard, or maybe bad cafeteria scrambled eggs - but the cupcakes are moist and lemony, though I guess the real test will be how they taste tomorrow, since if I'm taking them to work, I'll bake them on Sunday and bring them to the office on Tuesday, so they have to be good for that long. I made this strawberry cream cheese frosting this afternoon, but it wasn't stiff enough to pipe (not a euphemism) since I only used 2 cups of powdered sugar (and still think it is pretty sweet), so I just dipped the cupcakes into it. (I also did not make strawberry puree, I used 3 tbsps of seedless strawberry jam instead.) The tang of the cream cheese goes well with lemon and also helps cut through the sweetness of the frosting, so it worked pretty well, I thought. Next week, though, I plan to make strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream, which is much less sweet. We'll see how it goes.
I also tried to make homemade bbq sauce but I did not like how it tasted at all, so I didn't use it. Next time maybe I will try something that has no tomato base at all. Regardless, I cooked both racks of ribs and they were delicious and I will be eating ribs all week. I also made my own cole slaw dressing again, and this time I liked it better because I added onion and garlic powder - it is mind-boggling to me that the recipe doesn't include that and the first time around I just let it go but come on. Season your food!
So this weekend was delicious but so fucking messy - I ended up with egg yolk, bbq sauce, frosting, lemonade, and hot pork juice (not a euphemism!!! the ribs cook for 3 hours wrapped in foil and then for the last hour you take the foil off and it is a precarious situation!) on my shirt, but not all at the same time, thankfully.
*
The first ones were quite different than a typical lemon cupcake recipe - they had ricotta and honey in them, and I used this fancy lemon honey I had and I think that was a mistake. The cupcakes domed brilliantly, but had a weird aftertaste I did not like and the only thing I can think that could cause it was that honey. I otherwise used sour cream instead of creme fraiche, and olive oil for vegetable oil, but neither of those things should have caused the weird aftertaste. So maybe I'll eventually work my way back to that recipe (chosen because I have ricotta in my fridge that needs using up) and use clover honey and see how they are.
I think the second recipe is going to be my go-to for lemon for now. The batter is a super weird texture - it looked like curdled custard, or maybe bad cafeteria scrambled eggs - but the cupcakes are moist and lemony, though I guess the real test will be how they taste tomorrow, since if I'm taking them to work, I'll bake them on Sunday and bring them to the office on Tuesday, so they have to be good for that long. I made this strawberry cream cheese frosting this afternoon, but it wasn't stiff enough to pipe (not a euphemism) since I only used 2 cups of powdered sugar (and still think it is pretty sweet), so I just dipped the cupcakes into it. (I also did not make strawberry puree, I used 3 tbsps of seedless strawberry jam instead.) The tang of the cream cheese goes well with lemon and also helps cut through the sweetness of the frosting, so it worked pretty well, I thought. Next week, though, I plan to make strawberry Swiss meringue buttercream, which is much less sweet. We'll see how it goes.
I also tried to make homemade bbq sauce but I did not like how it tasted at all, so I didn't use it. Next time maybe I will try something that has no tomato base at all. Regardless, I cooked both racks of ribs and they were delicious and I will be eating ribs all week. I also made my own cole slaw dressing again, and this time I liked it better because I added onion and garlic powder - it is mind-boggling to me that the recipe doesn't include that and the first time around I just let it go but come on. Season your food!
So this weekend was delicious but so fucking messy - I ended up with egg yolk, bbq sauce, frosting, lemonade, and hot pork juice (not a euphemism!!! the ribs cook for 3 hours wrapped in foil and then for the last hour you take the foil off and it is a precarious situation!) on my shirt, but not all at the same time, thankfully.
*
[Vorkosigan] Six Sentence Sunday
May. 10th, 2026 02:47 pmlannamichaelsYou know how it is, when you start with a vague idea and a summary and then you write 4K in a day and you have written yourself out of that summary being suitable? Yeah. That.
The summary it should have fitted itself to: "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your feckless cousin closest of all." Wherein there would be porn and Gregor deciding that Ivan couldn't actually be mediocre and/or learned that trying to do well just got him unwanted attention. No, Ivan must be faking it on purpose.
Unfortunately then I dropped too heavily into Gregor's depression, so, uh, if this gets to the porn, it's going to take some doing. Also I have to do some serious tense editings because I started it in past tense but of course ever since I made the mistake of ever writoing in present tense, I must needs deal with tense shifting problems forevermore.
Point of diversion is that Gregor assigns Ivan to Residence Security right out of the Academy to keep an eye on him, and kicks Miles out after the mutiny.
Why couldn't Miles have ever learned to fake obedience as well as Ivan had? Ivan's flawless at his disguise. Why must Miles be so frustrating? Gregor feels even more hollow than usual as Aral nods his acknowledgment and mumbles a perfunctory, "your will, my liege."
It's the first time Gregor's tried exercising Imperial muscles in years and it's still all because Miles Vorkosigan is uncontrollable.
Gregor can't meet his gaze in the mirror as his armsman shaves him that night, and he accepts the sleeping pill with resignation.
Culinary
May. 10th, 2026 08:14 pmoursinThis week's bread: a Standen loaf, 4:1 strong brown/buckwheat flour, honey, Rayner's barleymalt extract, turned out nicely.
Saturday breakfast rolls: the ones more or less after James Beard's mother's raisin bread, more or less 50/50% Marriages Light Spelt Flour (end of bag) and Golden Wholegrain Flour, turned out quite well.
Today's lunch: as there were potatoes left from last week, made a gratin provencale sorta, served with slowcooked purple sprouting broccoli (this really needed even longer slow-cooking, was still fairly al dente) and padron peppers.
For all Mankind 5.08 and The Testaments 1.07
May. 10th, 2026 01:27 pmselenak
Meanwhile in tv land.
For All Mankind 5.08:
( Spoilers do not want to bounce back from Saturn… )
The Testaments 1.07:
( Spoilers are not supposed to be a spy but a sponge… )
For All Mankind 5.08:
( Spoilers do not want to bounce back from Saturn… )
The Testaments 1.07:
( Spoilers are not supposed to be a spy but a sponge… )