katherine

The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Marguerite Gavin
Concluding my reread of the original Five Gods books with the first book I read in that series. Yes, I know that's not the correct order, and in retrospect, I wouldn't recommend it. ("You're reading the third one!?" demanded an exasperated friend who'd spent years trying to talk me into reading The Curse of Chalion.)

Compared to the duology set in Chalion, which I've reread multiple times, I remembered relatively little about this one. Honestly, memory was the scene at the inn with the pregnant sorceress, the polar bear at the funeral, the ending in the sacred forest being confusing, and that I'd been reading it because someone had recommended it as an example of a fic trope when I was trying to get a handle on writing that trope myself. I didn't remember which fic trope, but it turns out it was soul bonding.

I think it benefits from reading them in order because this one somewhat expects you to know how the Five Gods worldbuilding works, and is doing its most interesting stuff by tinkering with it, so I think I was a bit overwhelmed going in cold. It might be a bit of a let down if you just want more of Caz, Ista and the gang, as they're in another country and also not born yet.

Anyway! I really liked it! The hero is a solid Bujold entry in stoic man who believes he's damaged beyond repair but feels the pull to act with honour despite not much of his experience with the world suggesting that's going to work out for him. The heroine would like things to be less stupid, and also not to get raped or murdered, and plans to persist until conditions improve. I felt like her character could've gotten fleshed out and given a bit more to do, but I did like her. There are a lot of vivid side characters who feel like they have their entire own stories while they're not on page, without taking over the narrative. The baddie was somewhat foreseeable (if it walks like a fascist, and talks like a fascist, it's prooooooobably...) but well constructed and convincing.

I did make sense of the big dramatic scene at the end this time, though it didn't quite have the kick of the ending of the first two books. Overall, this one was good, and if you liked the Caz and Ista books, you'll probably like this, but I would read them in order.

Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen
Grabbed this second hand as I've been meaning to read more of Yolen. I now feel a bit bad writing this not that long after the woman passed away, because it really shouldn't be held up to represent her writing. I think if you publish 500 books, they can't all be bangers?

I started out really enjoying it, and being pleased at how much SF/F in the 1970s and '80s could just be really fricking weird. It's presented as a series of anthropologists reports of first contact with a new planet, recordings of conversations, and trial transcripts, leading to overlapping, out of sequence, and sometimes contradictory versions of events. Which is usually my favourite thing! All the male characters also seemed to be casually bisexual (though not a lot of concern about consent to be found). I don't remember much sex happening between women, but it was still cool to see in a book that came out in 1984.

( This got long, so I'm putting the rest and the negativity behind a cut )

So yeah. That sure was a book I read. I'm glad it wasn't the first Yolen I encountered, and I will try again, but wow.

The Once and Future Riot by Joe Sacco
Grabbed this off the library shelf for non-fiction graphic novels while I was looking for something else.

Graphic novel about the author investigating the causes, events and aftermath of a religious riot in rural India. If that's the kind of thing that interests you, this will probably be interesting. I think the author did a good job of trying to pick apart the different strands of events and conflicting narratives to lay out not exactly what happened, then the tensions that lead to it happening, and how the cover up rolled out. Sacco has an eye for how people justify bad actions, and while it's not without judgement, it's certainly with an attempt at empathy. It does feel like that kind of openness and honesty is maybe what will lead to solutions in similar situations, but I also didn't leave with an impression that was happening at all.

ysabetwordsmith

Today we went up to Danville.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

cornerofmadness

So I am the type to over check everything and I'm very much rethinking the Hyundai. Too many times on the lemon car sites, too many big red flags from way too many reliable mechanic/car dude sites. The really big issues for me is the electronics tend to go bad in under 3 years especially if it's hot/humid. Guess whose car sits outside 24/7 with no garage?

Then it has a small laggy engine that is zero to 60 in 10 freaking seconds, much longer than other cars. It doesn't speed up in traffic well. Guess who has a no-runway merge into 65 mph traffic every day?

And then it gets worse gas mileage than other vehicles in its segment that'll end up costing me over 1K a year in gas fees. Sigh. I hate making these kinds of decisions.

Shockingly I have done nothing on

fandomgiftbasket I took a look at the Hazbin prompts, realized I can write maybe two people's requests and the others are nothing I could possibly write between either pairings or the requests. Now I usually try to over write for this thing because I feel bad for people with no fills and I jump in. I'm not sure I'll be doing that this year because I'm really going hard on the original fiction. Might need to look at a few other of my fandoms though.

Current Mood: stressed
Current Music: The Brokewood Mysteries

sweetsorcery

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

ysabetwordsmith

Scientists Have Found Climate-Resistant Coral Reefs Around the World Totaling the Size of Wisconsin

A sophisticated AI-powered examination of coral reef resistance extrapolated into the future found that there’re about 64,000 square miles of coral reefs on Earth that could still be resisting climate change by 2050.

The common theory states that CO2 emissions create a greenhouse effect which warms the seas which causes coral reefs to bleach or even die, yet there are environments—as GNN has frequently reported—where corals seem to be more resilient.

It would be nice if Earth didn't have to reinvent reefs again, and could keep this version.

Current Mood: busy

torachan

1. I decided to take my midday walk before lunch rather than after, in an attempt to get a little more shade, but it was still pretty awful and I ended up not being able to take that long of a walk. But I did stop in at a new to me cafe across the street from work called Da Vien and got an ube cream coffee, which was delicious.

2. I had a dentist appointment Tuesday but rescheduled it on Monday when I wasn't feeling well, in case I was still feeling gross on Tuesday, as I did not want to be stuck in a dentist's chair while having digestive issues. I wasn't able to get an early morning appointment for any day next week like I usually prefer and was only able to get 10am on Monday, and it's going to be a longish session, so I just decided to take the day off rather than schedule work around it.

3. We had been considering maybe getting a membership for the Natural History Museum as they are pretty reasonable (and we only need to buy one, as it's good for the member plus one guest), and then I got an email saying they're currently running a 20% off promo for membership, so I went ahead and signed up. It's actually good for both the museum and the tar pits, but the annoying thing is that the tar pits are closing as of this past Tuesday for two years for rennovation lol. So in this case it's only good for the one museum. But it gets you free access to all the separately ticketed exhibits, as well as 10% off food and merch.

4. Sleepy angel!

BERJAYA

lb_lee

Sorry for getting behind guys, it's a bad mix of computer breakage, [SECRET PROJECT], and also preparing, because we are tabling at ReaderCon from Friday, July 10 through Sunday, July 12, at the Boston Marriott Burlington in Burlington, MA!

Hope to see y'all there!

soc_puppet posting in

moodthemeinayear

And we've officially made it to the fourth break!

If you've been looking for a good spot to jump in and follow a schedule, next week would be perfect, as we're re-starting both the Minimum and Medium tracks. Otherwise, it's mostly business as usual.

Also, I promised by this point to have something figured out about premium paid time for original mood themes submitted to be Dreamwidth supported; while premium paid time itself is only offered in six and twelve month chunks, I'm going to be rewarding people in Dreamwidth points regardless, so I'll just do the math and send the equivalent number of points for anyone submitting fewer than 72 moods.

On that note, I've also officially been trained to upload new official, site-supported mood themes to Dreamwidth! So if you've got an original mood theme you've been sitting on and are thinking of submitting, now's a fantastic time to do that, as well. DM me or leave a comment on one of the posts here, and we can get started working on the details 👍

Other than that, it's just the usual break stuff: Catch up on missed moods or revisit any that you think need a touch-up, get ahead on future moods, or just take a break! Whatever you decide to do for the next week, I hope you enjoy it!

bluedreaming posting in

fan_flashworks

Fandom: Domundi (Thai BL) Actor RPF (RyujinPatji)
Rating: G
Length: 200 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: The title is from Among the Stones of the Earth by Fernando Linero, translated by Nicolás Suescún, and Delhi Summer, Early Afternoon by Kamlesh, translated by Teji Grover. Again, this is entirely fictional.
Summary: Sometimes everything is weird. And sometimes it’s okay again.

( Read more... )

tsuki_no_bara

it cooled down considerably out here (67º on tuesday which is positively frigid for july) and is now hot again. >.< sigh.

the summit at work is over (yesterday was the last day) and i have made notes for next year altho whether or not i remember that in eight months is a whole other thing. one of the japanese girls who was staying in the dorm apparently wasn't on the list and i got a panicked email about it which i didn't see until sunday, as i was off on friday and i don't work weekends. but i figured i should check my email JUST IN CASE because something always comes up at the very last minute and hey, something did! i found her on the list and emailed the guy in charge of the group and everything was fine because it usually is. lunch was reliably delivered early all three days - like, an hour early - but it was boxed lunches that didn't need to be refrigerated or heated up so that was fine. we had a poster session for which the posters were all printed too large which was probably our fault but not specifically my fault and, again, it was fine in the end. it's exhausting every year and people enjoy it every year and i'm not sorry it's over.

yesterday because the summit was a half day and everyone in the sponsoring group all worked really hard on it one of the guys on staff had us all over to his house for grilling and showing off his garden. (it's a nice garden and i'm not just saying that because it produces zucchini which is then turned into zucchini bread.) so i got to stuff my face (there were SO MANY BAGS OF POTATO CHIPS and i brought a large amount of three bean salad plus there were hotdogs and burgers and grilled zucchini and fruit and the one grad student brought rolled crepes which were delish) and hang with my coworkers and it was really nice and chill and a great way to end the summit. it also took me an hour and twenty minutes to get to the house from the ugly building where i work but only like thirty-five minutes to get home. traffic, man.

for the fourth my sister and i went to her friend e's house to eat and drink and schmooze and stay out of the heat (it was very hot and rain was forecast so we weren't in a hurry to sit outside in a field) and that was also fun. i brought the aforementioned three bean salad and friend e had ice cream cake for dessert. i do love a good ice cream cake. and her house has a/c. :D

i watched the boston pops and then the fireworks on tv when i got home and while fireworks are better in person the light show (with drones!) was just as cool on tv. they had a minuteman with a rifle and the bunker hill monument and the uss constitution and paul revere on his horse and the steeple of the old north church flickering with the two lanterns and a ship with crates being tossed over the side. it was very cool. jessica meir, one of the astronauts on the iss, has a boston connection so during i think the 1812 overture she joined the pops live from space. the giant screens on either side of the stage showed her floating in zero-g playing the piccolo with the rest of the musicians. how cool is that? right?

sunday i babysat

tamalinn's house so she could get a new front door lock. i zoomed with the family unit and pet the dog and mostly it got me out of the house.

the us is out of the world cup and i'm not broken up about it altho i think we had a pretty good run, at least until balogun got a red card suspension and the orange shitgibbon intervened to get it overturned. yeesh. dude doesn't even know what a red card is. i mean i don't either but i'm not interfering with world cup rules. anyway we're out and i have no favorites so i just hope the last games are good ones.

apparently the england-mexico game was the most watched soccer game ever in the us. 44 million people tuned in. which, holy shit. today was the last boston game, france-morocco. france won.

speaking of the world cup, check out some of the world cup snacks you can get in us stadiums. oxtail egg rolls. caviar on hash browns. lobster rolls, natch. and i know it's old news that overseas world cup fans went nuts for american ranch dressing but i have to share that kraft announced plans to release a travel friendly ranch dressing set. by which i mean tsa compliant (3.4oz) packets of ranch. weird and adorable.

if that's not enough ranch for you then you can always get a ranch dressing squishable.

today i learned that one of my pi's is going on sabbatical for the next academic year in PARIS. not that i'm jealous or anything. but i do wonder if that means he won't need as many hours from me and if so how will i make up those hours. i assume his students will still be around and they'll occasionally need support (travel, assorted expenses, whatever) but is that going to be enough? one of my other pi's was on sabbatical this past year but he didn't go anywhere and never required a lot from me anyway.

the nuns are podcasting. specifically dominican nuns. for those of you who listen to podcasts and/or are interested in what the sisters have to say.

way back in the late 40s in idaho as towns and settlements expanded people ran into conflict with the local beavers. so the state decided to relocate the creatures. by dropping them out of planes. (the test subject was named geronimo.) parachuting into new territory was apparently less stressful for a beaver than being transported by car and then horse to its new home. the idaho fish and game commission even made a documentary about it so you too can watch parabeavers being dropped from a height (the whole process starts at 7:21).

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: men in black international

james

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

hannah

Today was another building resident's move-out day - the same person who gave me most of her non-perishables a little while ago. Today was everything she had left in her fridge and freezer, and whatever else happened to be around. Some eggs, some frozen strawberries, a lime, frozen cubed ginger, oat milk, tahini, olive oil, soy sauce, mirin, a couple avocados, shallots, sesame oil, agave syrup, some cauliflower, and other ends and odds. I composted the oyster sauce and most of the cheeses immediately, and the rest's going to get used up in due time.

Some of that due time was tonight. For lunch next week, I swept the kitchen and used up the cauliflower, the shallots, some garlic cloves, some garlic scapes, the last onion I had around, some tomatoes, and a bit of a bunch of spices. I cooked the last of a bag of basmati rice, and mixed it all with a can of kidney beans. It wouldn't have worked as well without the two cups of cubed cauliflower. It needed some vegetables in there.

I took some cleaning supplies, some bathroom stuff, and $11.79 in dimes, nickels, and pennies. As a favor, I took a bunch of old pillowcases and duvet covers to the appropriate recycling station. As a favor, I'll be taking a bag of electronics - extension cords and whatnot - to another appropriate recycling station. A tiny wooden turtle and two cutting boards. Some fancy cookbooks I'll see about taking down to the Strand.

Someone else came by when I was there to grab some large pieces of furniture. I helped him move it, and he was impressed I had such an easy time of it. I've often said I go to the gym to help people move furniture. And today, it finally happened.

I didn't go to the movies, spending the afternoon logging some letters and doing the sweep-the-kitchen cooking instead, acting for instead of against my better judgment. It was still a good day.

I also found out James Ortiz is on Cameo, and while I don't know if he'll accept the request - others have turned me down before - it'll still be worth it to ask him if he'll do some poetry reading for me. A friend suggested Jabberwocky. I was thinking The Litany or For What Binds Us. I may go with the Gioia.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: nothing now

flareonfury posting in

fandom_icons

The below icons were made for

itsabattlefield Supernatural battle. Entry count was only 20, but... I'm me, and I have a bunch of extras... What can I say? I love me some werewolves, vampires & witches ;D

[20] Being Human (US & UK)
[03] She-Wolf of London
[02] Sabrina the Teenage Witch
[07] Grimm
[01] Moonlight
[02] Buffy the Vampire Slayer

PREVIEW
BERJAYA

werewolves, witches, and vampires....

rebeccmeister

It rained again yesterday, a bit more heavily in spots, but not quite the right spots yet.

I suspect the leafcutters are paying attention to the ambient humidity, though. We found two very enthusiastically foraging colonies this morning, which brings us up to 4 out of the 10 total that seems like a decent sample size to work with. (might go up to 11, though, because we barely got 30 foragers from the second colony)

No signs of any queens yet. More rain in the upcoming forecast.

ranunculus

Faucet and hose repaired. New trough standing by to be installed as soon as the old one is emptied (it is almost empty now), AND the overflow trough is full. The overflow trough has 6 inches of water in it. That is because I watered this morning and it took a while for the tanks to recover.
Got a haircut. Short, short, short!
Getting ready for tomorrow's departure to Santa Cruz for the weekend. Probably back on Sunday.

magid

I had my first non-leaf porch harvest of the season:
- five tiny eggplants (less than two knuckles long) plus one bigger one (almost the length of my palm)
- three ‘baby’ potatoes, and four micro-mini potatoes (smaller than my thumbnail)

Not enough for an entire dish of anything, but I can make a tiny side of… I’m not sure yet, but it will likely also have chives, to use more porch bounty.

flemmings

The forecast widely scattered thunderstorms morphed into a severe thunderstorm warning and considerable rain, scotching any idea I might have had about going out or ordering in. The thunder itself considerately remained distant but the accompanying pressure changes plus allergies brought on enough of a headache that I stayed doped for most of the afternoon on sinutabs and Pepsi.

Sent Witch King back to the waiting readers and consoled myself with the Kakuriyo manga which of course segues nicely into 100 Demons land. Last night I hacked through that first story in vol. 28 and now sort of have an idea what happened. But I have no notion what it was Uncle Kai took from the cult house and equally no idea what his semi-psychic coworker took from that other house-- he said it was a cat but Kai says You realize now it's not a cat? Oh no, he says You realize it's not something you can raise in an apartment. But the guy was buying cat food for it, so what was it? No idea what's up with the bell that the coworker buys for his ?cat? for his girlfriend? that disperses ghosts when they come knocking on the door. Only a vague idea what's up with coworker's mother who was supposed to have run off but who may be a ghost herself. This is Ima-sensei at her most obscure. And memory says 28 is an obscure volume all round. Argh.

kaberett

Last week I got Influenced to acquire Specific Shoes For Lifting In as opposed to merrily carrying on in my DMs. They arrived on Tuesday! Which meant I had them for squats yesterday. The only difference I have noticed so far was how confused I was by? my standard set-up? suddenly being the wrong height? Suddenly the cups were too high for me to be confident I'd be comfortably able to rerack the bar once I'd got significant weight on it.

... they are barefoot shoes. they have minimal soles. I'm nearly three centimetres shorter!!!

Meanwhile today's hobby has been working out a bunch of protein numbers, in relation to both the She's A Beast protein mush and the offerings of The Organic Protein Company (my second order from them having also arrived... on Tuesday). The former on account of I'm making my own yoghurt rather than using Fage 2% and I wanted to work out how it compared to the numbers Johnston quotes, whereupon I was alarmed to find out that I cannot by any reasonable means match her asserted 36g (but can if I assume she forgot she'd already added the peanut butter to it...); the latter out of curiosity about how preciously precise I might want about serving size (answer: I am not tracking ANYTHING else closely enough to care about a gram or so of protein each way in my shakes, good grief).

( sorry about the horrid formatting, I'll fix it in the morning (maybe) )

musesfool

I did end up going to bed super early last night - I hit the sack at 8:30 pm and slept, with minor interruptions, until 8 am, and it was fantastic. I don't know why I was so exhausted yesterday, but I'm glad I didn't try to fight it like I normally would to stay up until my usual bedtime.

My meetings next Tuesday have all been cancelled, so I've added the day to my vacation next week, so I'll be in Monday and then done until the next Monday. I also discovered I had booked 2 separate optometrist appointments, so I cancelled the one next Thursday and will go in August as usual.

My plan this weekend is to bake a blueberry crumb cake* to take to my brother's on Sunday for our birthday bbq, and then make a key lime pie for myself on Tuesday, since my birthday is Wednesday. I haven't figured out what I'll make myself for dinner, but that is always the less important part of things to me. As long as I have a good birthday dessert, the dinner can be anything.

*Note: it will be an orange blueberry crumb cake since my sister does not like lemon. We'll see how it goes!

I am also once again waiting for the cleaning service to let me know if they are coming on Monday or not. They did not come this past Monday since I said it wouldn't work for me, but then there was radio silence, so today I reached out again, but have not gotten an answer. I appreciate the work they do immensely. I just wish they were better at communicating!

*

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Beautiful Day - u2

wtfjht_feed

Posted by Matt Kiser

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2026/07/09/day-1997/

Day 1997

Today in one sentence: Trump, despite the Supreme Court already rejecting his attempt to end birthright citizenship by executive order, said he wants the court to reconsider its decision; the family of a Mexican national fatally shot by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in Houston called for an independent investigation into his death; Iran retaliated after the U.S. struck about 90 military targets along Iran’s coast overnight in what Central Command called an effort to “degrade” Tehran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz; Graham Platner suspended his Maine Senate campaign after a woman he previously dated accused him of raping her in 2021; former Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to a felony charge that he damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool; and Trump’s EPA proposed weakening pollution rules for heavy-duty trucks and buses.

1/ Trump, despite the Supreme Court already rejecting his attempt to end birthright citizenship by executive order, said he wants the court to reconsider its decision, calling the ruling “absolutely insane” and warning it would “destroy America” if the justices don’t reverse their ruling. The court ruled 6-3 last week that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to nearly all children born in the U.S., invalidating Trump’s order denying automatic citizenship to babies unless at least one parent was a citizen or lawful permanent resident. Rehearings, while technically allowed within 25 days, are almost never granted. The last rehearing was in 1965, and the court has only once reheard a case and reversed itself. (New York Times / Washington Post / CNN / The Hill)

2/ The family of a Mexican national fatally shot by an ICE agent during a traffic stop in Houston called for an independent investigation into his death. Federal authorities claimed an agent fired in self-defense after 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle” as ICE officers attempted to arrest him. Officials didn’t provide evidence, explain why Araujo was being arrested, or release video of the incident. Araujo was shot in the abdomen, taken to a hospital, and died. His son, Ronaldo Salgado, said he learned of his father’s death from a social media news report, not law enforcement. Araujo’s family said he was in the process of obtaining a work permit. The DHS inspector general, meanwhile, is investigating the incident, while the FBI’s Houston office is investigating what authorities called an assault on a federal officer. (New York Times / ABC News / Axios / USA Today)

3/ Iran retaliated after the U.S. struck about 90 military targets along Iran’s coast overnight in what Central Command called an effort to “degrade” Tehran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said it fired missiles and drones at U.S. military sites in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Jordan, but the attacks appeared to be mostly intercepted and there were no reported U.S. casualties or major damage to U.S. facilities. Trump, meanwhile, called the overnight strikes “retribution” and warned that if Iran attacked ships again, “it will get much worse.” (New York Times / NBC News / Bloomberg / Reuters / CNBC / CBS News / ABC News / CNN)

The Secret Service urged Trump to leave Turkey on the old Air Force One instead of his new, retrofitted Qatari-gifted jet as a security precaution after the U.S. launched strikes on Iran. Trump, however, denied that security concerns drove the switch, claiming the new jet was sent ahead to a U.S. air base in England so troops could tour it. (CNN / Washington Post / New York Times / ABC News)

4/ Graham Platner suspended his Maine Senate campaign after a woman he previously dated accused him of raping her in 2021. State officials, however, said he hasn’t formally withdrawn, yet. Platner has until 5 p.m. Monday to file the signed paperwork that would let Democrats replace him. Meanwhile, Platner has denied “any accusation of nonconsensual behavior” as “categorically false,” saying he’s stepping aside not because of the allegation but because party leaders were taking away “the things that we need to run a campaign,” like money and voter data. The Maine Democratic Party said it’ll hold a nominating convention if a vacancy is created and has until July 27 to name a replacement against Susan Collins in one of Democrats’ few chances to flip a Republican-held Senate seat. (NBC News / Axios / CNN / New York Times / Associated Press / Washington Post / The Guardian)

5/ Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn pleaded not guilty to a felony charge that he damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Federal prosecutors accused Hearn of ripping up the recently installed sealant and causing more than $1,000 in damage. Hearn faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. The case comes after Trump’s $14 million-plus renovation of the pool quickly ran into algae, peeling coating, and water-quality problems, which Trump has blamed on vandals without providing evidence. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Hearn’s alleged conduct was “a deliberate act,” while Hearn’s lawyers called the evidence “weak” and accused the administration of using him as a “scapegoat” for the failed renovation. (Associated Press / The Hill / CNN / NPR)

6/ Trump’s EPA proposed weakening pollution rules for heavy-duty trucks and buses by delaying warranty and useful-life requirements for emissions-control systems and eliminating a mandate that engines automatically lose power when those systems stop working. The EPA said the changes would “ease real burdens for operators” by saving $4,130 to $6,152 per affected diesel engine, despite its own analysis finding the rollback would increase ozone-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from heavy-duty trucks by 4.2% in 2030 and 11.6% by 2055. The agency, however, didn’t model the effect on air quality or human health. (NPR)

The 2026 midterms are in 117 days; the 2028 presidential election is in 852 days.

Today last year: Day 1632: "Treating democracy like a suggestion."
Two years ago today: Day 1267: "Ridiculous and abysmal."
Five years ago today: Day 171: "Any necessary action."
Six years ago today: Day 1267: "The pandemic is still accelerating."
Seven years ago today: Day 901: Radiating insecurity.
Eight years ago today: Day 536: Piece of trash.

Support today’s essential newsletter and resist the daily shock and awe: Become a member

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https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2026/07/09/day-1997/

savagelove_feed

Posted by Dan Savage

https://savage.love/savagelove/2026/07/09/all-the-crazy-married-people/

https://savage.love/?p=12218

On Thursdays I share a question from a reader and do my best to sit on my hands and let my readers give the advice. But first, some feedback… Says Thankful via email… Hey, Dan! In reference to the sexless marriage messages you get all the time, I just thought I would share this. Cis … Read More »

The post The Thursday Letter: All the Crazy Married People appeared first on Dan Savage.

https://savage.love/savagelove/2026/07/09/all-the-crazy-married-people/

https://savage.love/?p=12218

lycomingst

I spilled coffee on my bedroom extension cord that has everything plugged in and it knocked out half the house's power. It only causes some inconvenience (like, moving the frig to the other side of the room), but now I have to call the electrician the third time for the same outage. I haven't done that yet because I'm so mad at myself. Just mad.

I finished my Deadwood dvds and I've ordered the movie. I haven't seen it before and now I must. Next up is Burn Notice. That gets a little repetitive but I like the cast. It's out of alphabetical sequence because the casing is so awkward and it wouldn't fit on the shelf correctly before I thinned some of the dvds.

I'm watching Inspector Ellis on Acorn and they tell me there's a new series of Chelsea Detective coming soon, so I guess I'll be signed up until September.

forestofglory

It hasn’t been that long since the last media roundup and I haven't read that much but I had lots of thoughts that I wanted to share, so have a post:

Hirayasumi, vol 3+4 by Keigo Shinzō— This continues to be very charming. I’m loving all the little details.The cityscapes here feel so warm and lived in! I'm not sure if it's a slice of life manga thing, a manga thing or just an artifact of my limited selection but I've been really enjoying the land/cityscapes in the slice of life manga I've been reading recently
Content note: fatphobia/diet culture

Silver Spoon, vol 14-15 by Hiromu Arakawa— I’m working on a rec list of slice of life manga and I was reminded that I’ve never read the last two volumes of this series. I'd always meant to reread the rest of the series but that felt like too much of a project. So I ended up just reading these last two volumes – it wasn’t that hard to pick up, there’s helpful story summary in the front of each volume.

This is a charming story about a city kid who goes to an ag high school to get away from everything. I love all the details and about farming, food equipment and rural life. I thought it wrapped up nicely!

Batman: Wayne Family Adventures, Vol. 1 by C.R.C. Payne, StarBite, et al— I’ve been meaning to read this for a long time, and it was mentioned in the comments of my superhero comics rec list, so I finally got around to it. I ended up getting it on paper because the endless scroll webtoon format isn’t great for my hands.

It’s like a cute slice of life comic about the batfam. It’s got a very fic vibe, things are chill and everyone more or less gets along. Which sounds like exactly what I want in a batfam comic but for this first volume at least, felt a little flat actually. I wanted a bit more conflict or angst or something. I’m generally pretty happy with low conflict personal stakes stuff, but I guess these versions of the character feel a little shallow. Each story is so short, like five pages, its just hard to get much depth in that length.

(I’ll probably read some more of this because it is cute and free online. Maybe if I space out the episodes more it will not only not bother my hands as much but feel less bland.

X-men: The Animated Series season 1— Since I'm more open to Superhero media these days, R suggested we watch this animated series from the 90’s. It’s fun! I like that it's got a big team, though it does mean most characters don’t get much screentime. I also like that they are pretty much just fighting for mutant civil rights. There’s a lot less for me to suspend my moral disbelief about here than in most superhero stories I’ve encountered recently.

fuzzyred

Hi everybody! I don't have a lot of brain today, so this might not be a very coherent post. The last two weeks have been good. We had a heatwave, but we came out the other side fine and it's a bit cooler now. I had a few fun weekends, with more fun coming up.

I've done okay on my goals, although I hit a rough patch for yoga at the beginning of July. I have started a new book and a new baby blanket and have made good first steps on both.

Today I saw my grandma for her 80th birthday, which was very nice, and I get to do lunch with my good friend tomorrow. In the coming weeks, I hope to get more reading, knitting, and yoga done, as well as sticking with my coffee and treat goals for the month.

I hope you all are doing well and staying cool! See you again soon!

Current Mood: fine

sovay

Afterward I felt that I should have recognized Brian Fairbairn and Karl Eccleston's Tommies (2022) at once as the work of the same filmmakers who introduced half the internet to Polari with Putting on the Dish (2015), not least because the two short films make such a nice double feature for the viewer who shares their abiding interest in historical diction, coded communications, and the infectious paranoia of the pre-decriminalization queer male UK. Dense for their snapshot runtimes, they require a similar willingness from their audience to entertain the past on its own terms and learn how to listen to it, whether it's a bombshell of intricate argot or an event horizon of the politely unspeakable.

Six pyrotechnic minutes on Hampstead Heath in 1962, Putting on the Dish is the wittier, higher-wire of the two, sustaining even through its hard zag of an ending a rapid-fire exposition of Polari to scream for. On top of a crash course in the range and variety of marginalized influences that cascaded into one voraciously colorful anti-language, it concisely demonstrates how two strangers side by side on a public park bench could have anatomized the exuberantly unexpurgated adventures of acquaintances or exchanged their own appraisals of well-packaged passers-by, openly under the radar of Lily Law. "Real fantabulosa bit of hard." Its barbed ciphers form a fragile safe space, advanced as casually as a noncommittal naff or bona and then more colloquially relaxed into with talk of floweries and dinarly and disappointingly dolly HPs. "Nada to vada in the larder?" – "Bijou." Nothing else automatically links the bolder and cagier persons of Steve Wickenden and Neil Chinneck—the invaluable screenplay gives their camp names as Maureen and Roberta—but in their shared appreciation of a zinger of defiant backchat, the hillside seems tranquil with possibility, at least until recalled to the realities that oblige a furtive countercultural jargon in the first place. Polari defaults so naturally to irony, getting a heart-punch out of it is an achievement, one of the few direct gestures in a vignette that rewards cryptography. Even the book in its pink jacket encodes its own implications. What English signals is nothing to say.

Down to the riddle of its title, Tommies is the more somberly ambitious slow burn, circling its fifteen minutes in the wings of the haut ton in 1814 around an invented yet all too imaginable coda to the infamous treatment of the Vere Street Coterie. An exercise in negative space, it never looks inside the molly house itself, shows nothing of the men who patronized it except through their social radioactivity, the cishet fascination with their queer customs. "When the police raided their den, they found a dozen men in a bed in one room and in the other a midwife helping a female grenadier give birth to a Wiltshire loaf!" Its Mayfair house is a curdled chocolate box, thick with the stifling half-light of a summer's evening and frantic with the trills and flutters of canaries like the tight catch in a throat or the snap of an expertly wielded fan. Sarah Winter as Georgina Ashton has a look of Psyche not only because of the white fillet her bronze-dark hair is caught up with, but because she stands on the black-and-white chequers of the stair hall as if facing into hell. How she fits into the loose, allusive swirl of gossip that gradually overtakes the women's conversation may be clocked first by students of the queer Regency, but it still has to be deciphered from the ellipses left between the more overt shocks as the cross-currents of schadenfreude, sympathy, and self-preservation gather to a point of no return. As with so much paranoid cinema, even at pocket-size, the question of who knows what is really asking the use of which the knowledge will be made. "When a man holds fire to his chest, it is not only his own clothes he burns." It's a tense, trickily layered tour-de-force for its all-female ensemble—the rest of its cameos are precisely razored in by Marion Bailey, Claudia Jolly, Elizabeth Roberts, and Susie Trayling—and it doesn't not land the wraparound of its final scenes to the unsettled Gainsborough of its cold open, but it feels like more of a fragment than its predecessor despite or because of its greater craft. Its apophatic technique might have to let up for a feature. As a chip of history, it can still haunt.

Beyond their adroit ear and eye for period detail, both films are attractive little objects. Shot on open-air digital by Benjamin Barber, Putting on the Dish has a sort of Eastmancolor overcast that suits both the year and the season; its men look unglamorous and attainable, the imperfections of their faces as expressive as the artifice of their language. Tommies looks like a heritage ghost on slightly powdery 16 mm, a gallery of revealingly shadowed portraits hung by DP Brian Fawcett; its women emerge from their era with all the mixed and inconvenient reality of facts escaping the historical record. I can best compliment the characterfully inhabited costume design by Oliver Cronk by invoking Alexandra Byrne. Impressively, neither feels like just another whack of gay tragedy even when they focus so intimately on the never-beneficial ramifications of a criminalized life; they are too vivid and compassionate, interested in all of their players regardless of their effects. I watched them courtesy of their writer-director-editors' YouTube and would be intrigued by any further foreign countries—how differently and how recognizably things are done there—they choose to add to their many-voiced queer mosaic. This English brought to you by my bona backers at Patreon.

Current Music: John Howard, "Such a Drag"

Book Review Backlog: Part II (April)

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i keep thinking it's friday (it is not)

Home Again Jiggety

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Early, smaller rains [status, work]

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