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Death of ambition

Air temperature 66 F, wind northwest about 5 mph, partly cloudy with added wildfire smoke. Dew point 63 F, high pollen, air quality moderate with AQI 57. I did not like the air when I rolled the trash bin to the end of the driveway. Planned bike ride may be scrubbed in favor of a sedate walk.

Bunny Has Grudgingly Given Into the Ikea Bed

Posted by Daily Bunny

https://dailybunny.org/posts/2025/6/6/bunny-has-grudgingly-given-into-the-ikea-bed

Thanks, Liz and bunny Wee Moray! Liz writes, “After nearly 6 months of ignoring it WM has taken a liking to his bun bed, he refuses it with anything soft and cozy on it, however, so it is cotton sheets only for him, & although he looks a bit sheepish in this pic., he has been delighting in playing king of the castle, calling me over to see him, & then telling me to go away!”

https://dailybunny.org/posts/2025/6/6/bunny-has-grudgingly-given-into-the-ikea-bed

Clefs of Insanity

Let’s see, I made good progress on my paper today, I returned a stack of library books, I found some potentially useful exercises for sciatica, and I attended an a capella concert by The Clefs of Insanity. They sang 15 songs, and in addition to those in English, there were songs in Middle English, Gaelic, Quenya (as in elvish), Latin, French, and Estonian. They also sang the main song from Barbie.

I was sitting on the aisle in the back, which was nice until directly before the concert started, when a mom and a small child (3? 4?) sat down in the row in front of me, and the boy talked incessantly – quietly but incessantly – through the first two songs. People in front of him were turning around and looking. I gave up after the second song and moved to an entirely different part of the hall. I think the point was that the child’s dad was one of the singers? Nevertheless, it was pretty inconsiderate.

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(no subject)

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

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fanfic:babylon 5

Babylon 5 fanfic: One Safe Harbor

The recent "only one bed" meme (which I still haven't finished, as per usual) led to only-one-bed thoughts and this missing scene for B5 5x16.

One Safe Harbor (also on Ao3 - G'Kar/Londo, 2300 words, explicit)
Missing scene on the flight from Babylon 5 to Centauri Prime in 5x16. Two people in a very small sleeping space. Also, some feelings are had.

( One Safe Harbor - 2300 wds )

Current Mood: busy

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Skate Park

Blind skateboarder creates 'world-first' adaptive skatepark: 'I've never had a place where I can skate with full confidence'

About seven years ago, he started dreaming of creating the world’s first adaptive skatepark right in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan.

Finally, the park is a reality.

Called “The Ranch,” the 5,000-square-foot skatepark is completely accessible, allowing both seasoned low-vision boarders to take it for a spin and newcomers to the sport to feel welcome.

Everyone should have access to opportunities for physical activity and creativity.

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murderbot

Murderbot's morning routine

Alexander Skarsgård getting pushed and pulled into his costume each day! On tumblr

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friday five

Friday Five - oh why not

1. Have you ever been to summer camp?

No. But 'summer camp' is not a thing here in Australia the way it seems to have been in the USA. There were camps, yes, but they were very directly related to school - a week is the longest that I remember and I was 12. After that, it was school excusions, yes, or band camps, and a couple of times Beach Mission (yes, literally, Christian mission in the middle of summer at a beach).

2. Have you ever made a s'more?

Yes! Back visiting some friends in upstate NY in the early 2000s when their sons were just born. Her family had a holiday house on a lake and we went and stayed there, and they taught me about making s'mores.

3. Have you ever slept under the stars (no tent/tarp)?

Possibly, depending on how you take it. I've slept on a wooden porch, huddled up with a bunch of other people. We were doing an "all nighter" purely for the sake of doing it. It wasn't fun.

Actually, wait yes, I have slept under the stars. At a 'B&S' (Bachelors' and Spinsters' ball) out west, in the tray of a utility truck. We'd tossed a bunch of mattresses in, and there were about a half-dozen of us all sprawled out to sleep after the ball. It wasn't terrible. We were young, and that makes a difference!

4. Have you ever had a member of the opposite sex sleep over at your house?

Only after I became an adult. House-sharing in Sydney means you have housemates who have all sorts of people staying over.

5. What type of bed do you have (queen, twin, bunk, etc.)?

Twin. I had a queen-size at our last house (and had a queen-size pretty much since I was 24) but when we moved out into this place, there wasn't space for a queen-sized bed, so I downsized to an IKEA twin with an under-bed storage space. And, as it turns out, the queen-mattress fitted sheets fit on the twin-size when you have a super-thick mattress.

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reflection

back to school, 5/?

hmm 12 (to pick up from post 4/?) I had a vague sense in grade school that word problems and I didn't get on. ( Read more... )

13 I've chosen to take an additional class from each of two instructors, and to avoid an additional class from a third instructor---a novelty compared to the chronic overenrollment of my original undergrad classes, whereby one did not choose so much as roll dice against the enrollment slot, one's requirements, and unseen forces (which I realized in grad school were partly administrative, such as who was on leave during a given term). Anyway, the instructor to avoid for the fall had a synchronous lecture via Zoom for spring and advertised several times for his fall class. I see why, now---only 15% of its seats have been filled.

Current Mood: busy

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Follow Friday 6-6-25: Active Communities on Dreamwidth Spring 2025 J-Z

These are active communities in Dreamwidth from Spring 2025 . They include things I've posted, but only the active ones; the thematic posts also list dormant communities of interest. This list includes some communities that I've found and saved but haven't made it into thematic posts yet. This post covers J-Z.

See my Follow Friday Master Post for more topics.

( Read more... )

(no subject)

To say that today was a great day at work would be an understatement of profound proportions.

Girl Genius for Friday, June 06, 2025

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20250606

The Girl Genius comic for Friday, June 06, 2025 has been posted.

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20250606

Home

Discharged yesterday evening. Have spent most of today asleep because I could. Reached out to both Dr. ID's office and Dr. Hematology's office. The former to check if he wanted to see me in office (receptionist asked a great question, "Are you on IV antibiotics, to which I got to say no; oral [which is its own hot mess; I am not going there]. So she is supposed to call me back.

Dr. Hematology's office seemed ready to shunt me into new patient needs full workup routing so I am writing him tomorrow to have him try to get me rerouted so I can get labs done Wednesday. I am fine with weekly but they have to get drawn! Will miss June surgery date but would prefer not to miss July (which is why weekly labs are crucial; he was like every other week is fine. Um no.

Okay time for more sleeping.

Savudrija Star Trails

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250605.html

Savudrija Star Trails

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250605.html

Friday's comic

Hmm... Clever-

Current Mood: busy

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Recipes

Someone mentioned efforts to increase use of offal. The much simpler way to get more people to eat organ meat is to present delicious recipes using it. This is easily accomplished by scouting cuisines that already use a lot of organ meat, such as soul food or some Asian cuisines. Use everything but the squeal!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_soul_foods_and_dishes

https://www.butterforall.com/traditional-cooking-traditional-living/category/nutrient-dense/

https://foragerchef.com/category/carnivore/offal/

festoon

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/festoon-2025-06-06

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for June 6, 2025 is:

festoon • \fess-TOON\ • verb

Festoon usually means "to cover or decorate (something) with many small objects, pieces of paper, etc.," or "to appear here and there on the surface of." It can also mean "to hang decorative chains or strips on."

// Tiny wildflowers festooned the meadow.

// We festooned the halls with ribbons and garland.

See the entry >

Examples:

"The road was lined with ancient trees festooned with Spanish moss." — Tayari Jones, Travel + Leisure, 14 Apr. 2025

Did you know?

The noun festoon first appeared in the 1600s when it was used, as it still is today, to refer to decorative chains or strips hung between two points. (It can also refer to a carved, molded, or painted ornament representing such a chain.) After a century's worth of festoon-adorning, the verb festoon made an entrance, and people began to festoon with their festoons—that is, they draped and adorned with them. The verb form of festoon has since acquired additional, more general senses related not only to decorating, but to appearing on the surface of something, as in "a sweater festooned with unicorns." Perhaps unsurprisingly, this celebratory-sounding and party-associated word traces back (by way of French and Italian) to Latin festa, the plural of festum, meaning "festival."

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/festoon-2025-06-06

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Daily Happiness

1. I had a nice work from home day. Pretty chill. Got a lot done.

2. My Switch 2 arrived this afternoon! I have not taken it out of the box yet as I do not have time to set it up and transfer all my stuff from the Switch, so I will do that tomorrow or Saturday.

Last night Carla decided to swing by Best Buy just to see what the situation was, thinking that the store would not open until midnight, but actually they were opening at 9pm (midnight for east coast stores). She went by around 10:30, saw a bit of a line but not much but didn't want to hang around until midnight (we still thought that was the timeline) so she came home, and then ended up going back about an hour later to see if they were still open. They were, and they did not have the bundle left, but did have both the system and the cartridge version of Mario Kart, so she got both. Now we both have Switch 2s! Really surprised it was so easy to get one after all the fuss with the preorders. Since she is going out of town tomorrow, she didn't end up setting hers up yet either lol.

3. Gemma is so cute! How is she so cute!?

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3 Purrcys, chemical adventures

It's been a long time since I posted a Purrcy pic, I've let The Horrors eat up too much of my emotional energy. Here's what I saw first thing when I woke up the other day--a little latter than I meant to, but it was *so hard* to get out of bed!

And look at those toe beans!

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is curled in a gentle arch, just waking up. His white fluffy tummy is partly visible, and one front paw is stretched out to pull up a back foot just a little, enough to expose a few pink and black toe beans.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is curled in a gentle arch, just waking up. His white fluffy tummy is partly visible, and one front paw is stretched out to pull up a back foot just a little, enough to expose a few pink and black toe beans.

-----------
After an exciting session of tail!shenanigans in the empty shelf, Purrcy sat down as a rather plump loaf and stared at me with both light-green eyebeams.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby sits in loaf position on an empty white shelf, facing front, white whiskers outspread, light green eyes staring intently at the viewer.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby sits in loaf position on an empty white shelf, facing front, white whiskers outspread, light green eyes staring intently at the viewer.

----
Sometimes #Purrcy gets overstimulated and wants his playtime to involve Fierce Fighting With Mom. I'm trying to train him to go for alternatives that do NOT involve human bloodshed -- like displacement scratching, that works!
#cats #CatsOfBluesky

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is on his cat perch, fur on his back raised, pupils dialated, one paw raised as though about to thwap the person holding the camera. He is not joking!

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby is on his cat perch, fur on his back raised, pupils dialated, one paw raised as though about to thwap the person holding the camera. He is not joking!

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby crouches on his cat perch, scratching at the corner as he glares at the camera. The fur on his back is standing up, his pupils are dialated, he is NOT happy with the human

There was a mess-up with one of my prescriptions, and I went off one of my "minor" brain meds cold turkey this week. By today it was NOT minor, but I finally got the right pills and within 30 minutes I felt like myself again. And then had to have a nap, because mania does NOT lead to adequate sleep.

Fortunately, my family could tell what was going on and mostly refused to engage, and didn't hold it against me. But I've had enough therapy recently talking about my mother & our relationship that I can now really see why a friend who's a shrink told me years ago, "You know your mother's bipolar, right?"

I mean, I took her word for it, diagnosing people was her *job*. But I really *felt* it today, when I realized that I'd been having a (mild-medium) manic episode and I was reacting to things *just the way my mother did*.

So. I'll make sure to remember those feelings--which include a fair bit of paranoia as well as driving intensity--and know what to call them, and look first for the chemical imbalance behind them, knowing that they lie.

"Trust your feelings" yeah no, I like *data*.

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pride storybundle

2025 Pride StoryBundle!

Melissa Scott and i and have once again curated the Pride StoryBundle and it is full of great queer books by great queer writers! This year's lineup:

We're Here: Best Queer Speculative Fiction of 2023 edited by Darcie Little Badger and Charles Payseur
Point of Dreams (Astreiant #3) by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett
The Map and the Territory by A.M. Tuomolo
These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart by Izzy Wasserstein
Be the Sea by Clara Ward
Fallen by Melissa Scott
A Necessary Chaos by Brent Lambert
Luminescent Machinations edited by Rhiannon Rasmussen and dave ring
Fairs' Point (Astreiant #4)
So You Want to be a Robot by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
Price of a Thousand Blessings by Ginn Hale
Reforged by Seth Haddan
Welcome to Boy.Net by Lyda Morehouse
Power to Yield by Bogi Takács

Everything from queer high fantasy to trans cyberpunk, short stories to novels, award-winning authors to debut authors and for $25 you get all 14 books AND you can designate part of your purchase price (no extra cost!) for Rainbow Railroad's work with LGBTQ refugees! Heckuva way to kick off Pride Month!