bodies_in_motion

I posted a while ago about how I'd been really getting into pottery this year. That remains true, and shows no signs of stopping. It's just so fun! I still take a 3-hour class once a week at a member-owned studio near me; I think wistfully about spending more time on it too, but for various reasons including but not limited to the busyness of my life in general, that dedicated weekly slot is what works right now.

Back in late February, I spotted a flyer that someone had hung up on the studio bulletin board. It was a call for Boston-area artists to submit art inspired by Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, as part of an art show and book circle event co-organized by two local stores, The Local Hand and JustBook-ish.

I'd been meaning to read Parable of the Sower for ages, and the idea of doing a pottery piece inspired by a book seemed really fun -- like a Yuletide prompt, but for physical objects. Also, if your piece was accepted, you got a $500 stipend and 75% of the sale price if your piece sold, and let's be real, that was also extremely motivating.

And motivation was useful! Because the deadline was just over a month away. Pottery has a lot of built-in wait time while things dry, get fired, etc, so on a once-a-week schedule that was going to be pretty tight.

So I read the book, and loved it -- I'd been told that it was brilliant, which it is, and that it's brutal, which it is, but all of the (accurate!) discussions of its brutality hadn't conveyed the fierce pragmatism and focus of how Butler writes hope and community, and that's what I loved most -- and by the next week, I had a plan.

( About my piece, and the process, and also noodling about pottery and art -- this got very long )

kaberett

... is a placeholder because I am doing so badly at routines in general and bedtime routines in particular, still, augh.

Reading. Adventures in Stationery, James Ward. Not entirely sold on the way anecdotes were strung together, and definitely dubious about the broader social history, but a pleasantly undemanding diversion in a week where I really needed that and for bonus points it finally explained The Thing About Blackwing Pencils to me.

( Stationery nerding. )

Watching. One more episode of Farscape (S02E02 Vitas Mortis), while bleaching A.

Cooking. Mostly Pasta With Things. (Things have included "kohlrabi and misc other greens from the allotment" and "psuedo puttanesca".)

Eating. STRAWBERRIES. Have also nibbled, from the allotment: peas! broad beans! aforementioned kohlrabi! cherries! the first raspberries! redcurrants! jostaberries!

Exploring. ... bits of a field? OH and I bimbled down to the post office and, en route, checked how the local quince tree is doing. (FRUITING.)

Creating. Painted A colours!

Growing. Iiii just about made it to the allotment to water things on, like, Tuesday, but I have otherwise been... struggling.

... the ginger at home continues to go zoom, though! And I really really need to pot it on, eesh.

Observing. BAT.

redbird

We just had an unexpected visit: Adrian asked if I'd be willing to either mask or sit in the study with the door closed, so one of her comrades could sit in our air conditioned apartment for a little while. Adrian asked because Simcha is less heat-tolerant than I am, and at least as covid-cautious, so I said yes. It was good to talk to them; I'd met Simcha but only in passing, and Adrian hadn't met them at all, but Adrian talks about them, and Simcha is the person we recently gave our loveseat to.

That was fun, and now they have left and I have taken my mask and clothes off, and am drinking tea. I ended the visit when I started getting uncomfortably warm despite the AC, as well as it being time for me to have tea.

rmc28

You may have noticed it's been hot in England. So a lot of this week has just been the extra routines to cope with that (airing out the house at night / early morning, extra hydration, more naps).

It was a three-day week at work for me, with Monday my travel day back from Prague, and Wednesday a multi-errand day. Tuesday was a hectic day at work, but a rare evening with very few plans, so I actually rested. Wednesday had EHCP review for one child; a lunchtime skating lesson for me; a school bowling trip, hospital appointment and shopping all with the other child; and then Kodiaks practice in the evening.

( lots of ice hockey )

This week and next are 4-day weeks at work for me; I am having a long weekend away in Portsmouth with one of my oldest friends from university. Probably my only trip away this year that isn't directly about ice hockey. (But there is a rink in Gosport and both of us skate.) We plan to visit the Mary Rose, and I at least want to visit both the Submarine Museum and the Explosion Museum. I have been intrigued by the latter since I saw a road sign for it on the way to Gosport rink last month, but haven't yet found anything else about it apart from name and location. No spoilers!

fred_mouse

Between one thing and another, I haven't been keeping up on dreamwidth. I'm spending the next hour or so attempting to clear out - there were 317 tabs open in the dreamwidth window when I started; it will be interesting to see where I get to. So many posts from mid-May I was going to reply to; giving myself permission to abandon. And then I'm going to do the same thing with the backlog of my inbox.

And how do I get to 317 tabs? By every day or two scanning my reading list, and opening everything longer than a paragraph that I expect to want to read. This means I can get 'caught up' over breakfast, even if not everything gets read!

kaberett

I went "HOLD ON I HAVEN'T POSTED--" at 00:01 last night, when I had already been in bed but failing to sleep for about twenty minutes, and so I will tell you that part of the reason that I did not manage to actually post, actually yesterday, is that my reward for having finally e-mailed the headache clinic and said "so yeah I took my loading doses in mid-April, sorry I didn't manage to e-mail at the time, executive dysfunction has been eating my entire brain"...

... was of course a response like "well ideally your follow-up appointment would have been last week but, okay, fine, how about Monday? :|"

"... oh and by the way you know those questionnaires we want you to submit a minimum of a week in advance? yeah if you could get those done too--"

-- which: ENTIRE brain.

(I managed to confirm the Monday appointment. I did not manage to get the headache diary and questionnaires done.)

luzula

I went around and took a few pictures of what we're growing! We had a long dry spell in the spring, which had me worried that there would be drought, but since then we've have some proper rainy weather, which is good. The dry spell made a dent in the slug population, so we've mostly escaped any serious damage (and the ducks do their part, as well). Now it’s sunny again, and most of our vegetables are doing quite well, although there are a few failures, of course.

( Lots of photos under the cut )

actiaslunaris

Some days are just

<--old post
new post-->

Yeah, some days are.

Angry at myself.

Managing money sucks.

Won't make this mistake again.

I hope.

Current Mood: pissed off

rmc28

(I forgot to mention that for about twenty minutes of the day I flew to Prague, I couldn't find my passport, because it was not in the box where it normally lives at home. That was not a fun twenty minutes, and much love to both Tony and Charles for joining me in the search. We found it eventually, it had fallen down the side of the shelf on which the passport box lives, in a way that meant you could only see it from one specific angle. Thankfully, I eventually stood at that angle and spotted it.)

The ice hockey camp continued to be excellent and very hard work, and I feel like I learned a great deal (and now I need to remember to keep using everything I learned and not fall back into bad habits). The coaching was very supportive and kind while pretty much pushing me to my physical limits. I very much hope to return on future camps.

The Saturday evening we went into central Slaný where there was a kind of beer festival happening, lots of different beer stands around the town square, a live rock band on stage, and a bunch of fairground rides. Sunday lunchtime, after the camp was finished, the original three of us got an Uber into Prague in the gloriously hot and humid afternoon. The other two had been to Prague before so I went off on my own to do some tourist things (boat tour! historical tram! walking across the Charles Bridge!) and messaged them when I was ready to meet up again. Turned out we were about five minutes walk apart at that point.

I took a load of photos but actually this random selfie for my family is one I'm really happy with:

We had dinner in Prague, during which time the hot weather broke into torrential downpour, and did a bit more walking around once that tailed off into intermittent showers, but eventually got back to Slaný for the evening. We got packed up and out of our rooms as requested in the morning but were able to leave our kit in storage while we had a leisurely walk and hipsterish brunch in Slaný before it was time to head to the airport.

Getting home was tediously delayed by train cancellations but I still got home in time to put the first washload on and repack my kitbag for Warbirds practice Monday evening.

rachelmanija

While on a commercial expedition, an unexpected accident causes Mai, an engineer, and Juna, an HR person, to crash-land on a pitch-black planet called Shroud. They can't get out of their escape pod because the air is corrosive and unbreathable, and they can't call for help. Their only hope is to use the pod's walker system to trek all the way across the planet... which turns out to be absolutely teeming with extremely weird life, none of which can see, all of which communicates via electromagnetic signals, most of which constructs exoskeletons for itself with organic materials, and some of which is extremely large.

As readers, we learn very early on that at least some of the life on Shroud is intelligent. But Juna and Mai don't know that, the intelligent Shroud beings don't know that humans are intelligent, and human and Shroud life is so different that it makes perfect sense that they can't tell. As Juna and Mai make their probably-doomed expedition across Shroud, they're accompanied by curious Shroud beings, frequently attacked by other Shroud creatures, face some of the most daunting terrain imaginable, and slowly begin to learn the truth about Shroud. But even if they succeed in rescuing themselves, the predatory capitalist company that sent them on their expedition on the first place is determined to strip Shroud for materials, and doesn't care if its indigenous life is intelligent or not.

This is possibly the best first contact novel I've ever read. It's the flip side of Alien Clay, which was 70% depressing capitalist dystopia and 30% cool aliens. Shroud is 10% depressing capitalist dystopia and 90% cool aliens - or rather, 90% cool aliens and humans interacting with cool aliens. It's a marvelous alien travelogue, it has so many jaw-dropping moments, and it's very thematically unified and neatly plotted. The climax is absolutely killer.

The characterization is sketchy but sufficient. The ending is a little abrupt, but you can easily extrapolate what happens from there, and it's VERY satisfying. As far as I know this is a standalone, but I would certainly enjoy a sequel if Tchaikovsky decided to write one.

My absolute favorite moment, which was something you can only do in science fiction, is a great big spoiler. ( Read more... )

starwatcher

Hooray! I saw this in time for people to get in on the deal.

"On Friday, June 20, 2025, get a curated offering of free romance books at your preferred ebook retailer, no strings attached. This is just a helpful collection of free-for-a-limited-time romance ebooks!"

https://www.romancebookworms.com/

Feel free to share this wherever.

duskpeterson

The best place to start your visit to the royal sanctuary is at Jackalfire Grove, just outside the door leading to the sanctuary. At one time, this grove of jackalfire trees was smaller, overlooking the so-called burning ground, where some of the worst events in Koretian history took place.

It is here, from the time of Koretia's earliest days, that god-cursed men and women were stoned to death. It is here that, in recent centuries, disobedient slaves were burned alive. And it is here that, during the ninth, the King of Koretia was slain by a rival in one of the many blood feuds that rent the fabric of Koretian society.

All of these atrocities – stoning, burning alive, and blood feuds – were abolished by the Emorians during their occupation of Koretia. Their abolition was confirmed by Koretia's present ruler, the Jackal, when he ascended the throne. Yet only two generations have passed since the outlawing of the most pernicious aspect of the Koretian gods' law. Many residents of Koretia's capital still remember the festive crowds that used to gather here when a god-cursed man or woman was stoned, or when a slave was burned alive.

Not surprisingly, most Koretians today avoid visiting this grove. Paradoxically, the Jackal encourages visits here, especially by families with children who like to play amidst the trees. It is his way of turning evil to good.

Before leaving, be sure to pluck a twig or leaf from one of the jackalfire trees. Bring it with you to the royal sanctuary.

[Translator's note: One of the terrible events in Jackalfire Grove occurs in Death Mask.]

kaberett

I have managed all of my physio once and only once this week. I have not yet got on the mat at all. I have been spending a lot of time asleep, which probably shouldn't surprise me, and a fair amount migrainey, which does (unpleasantly). Have this evening at least managed to send the email to the headache clinic that's been due since April, and consequently may or may not actually get an appointment in time to get a prescription in time to not need to reload the f2f galcanezumab again.

(Have also been really struggling with actually opening notebook since the last trip up north, which is helping precisely nothing. Maybe acknowledging that here will make it a little less scary to go back to, at least.)

jesse_the_k

I always enjoy the wide variety of postcards which appear regularly from fflo. Tuesday, fflo posted about the "Best Wrong Answers" to LearnedLeague. These are a series of punchline-worthy responses to Jeopardy!-style questions. For example:

In photography, the overall brightness of an image is determined by the "exposure triangle" of aperture, shutter speed, and a third factor which is a measure of the sensitivity of the camera's sensor (or the film) to light. This third factor is known as what?

REMEMBERING TO TAKE THE LENS CAP OFF

Even though I got online before the WWW, I’d never heard of LearnedLeague, which is a very dedicated group of trivia fiends. Here’s what I found:

Like any tight-knit community, there’s a ton of jargon. Participants are called LLamas (the double L matching Learned League). Membership is by invite only, though there is some public content at
LearnedLeague.com

Some of the world-readable "Best Worst Answer" tallies follow the URL pattern

https://learnedleague.com/hist/awards/100.php

Where 100 references the season—I had some fun plugging in random numbers.

From season 97:

A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), and Many Waters (1986) continue the story first told by author Madeleine L'Engle in what 1962 novel?

3 REASONS TO HAVE HOMEOWNERS INSURANCE

Public, unofficial Learned League groups on Reddit and Facebook. More fun to be had from grazing the #BestWrongAnswers tag on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bestwronganswers

nilchance

well, my estranged father apparently died on the 16th. I found out on Facebook. I just texted my brother for the first time in 10 years because I guess I no longer have to worry about things getting back to my father. I have no idea how I'm feeling about this yet.

fred_mouse

Our Thursday night dinner has standardised to 'that's not miso soup'. It starts with homemade vegetable stock paste, hot water, and miso. And then we add an assortment of things, typically fish balls, diced tofu, soy beans, lotus root, chopped mushrooms. Sometimes we get fancy, and there is roasted and shredded nori, but often that is beyond me (Thursdays are a little bit 'mouse should minimise kitchen based risk behaviours', such that the nori might rather go up in flames; cutting the tofu is sometimes high risk, but some of that is because the knife is weirdly weighted and will end up blade up if you put it down wrong). Sometimes I remember that I'm supposed to put the broccoli stems in, or the kai-lan, or some other brassica that has miraculously appeared in the fridge.

For reasons that have to do with having dealt with three teenagers, fish balls are rationed; currently it is four per person.

For weeks, I've been singing 'and FOUR fish balls', always in the same tune, with the knowledge that I know what the tune is, but not remembering the context. Last week, I suddenly worked it out--it's from Tommy, to the line "(sure played) a mean pin ball". Mind, that's not going to stop me doing it, I'm even more amused at myself now I have the context.

vass

Books
Started Freya Marske's A Power Unbound.

Fandom
I'm mostly reading Nine Worlds or The Goblin Emperor fanfic right now.
Recs:
A Nuisance Though Thou Art, by

wedgetail. (The Goblin Emperor, complete.) Setheris dies when Maia's eleven.
Wheel and turn or bleed and burn by

Drel_Murn. (Nine Worlds, WIP) Pern fusion. The fire lizard character is a delight. Mind the rape/noncon warning: that's not just because of the dubcon nature of mating flights.
fake a smile, by

ariex09,

crownedrooster,

fire_eyes_chica, and

rattyjol (Nine Worlds. Series: five complete stories and two WIPs.)

crownedrooster wrote an upsetting fic back in late 2023 in which Fitzroy, during ROFA, makes a bad bargain with a memory-stealing creature. Since then, various people (including

crownedrooster) have written follow-ups, fix-its, make-it-worses, and complicate-it-furthers.

Music
Listened to the Doors' song 'The End'. Did no one in the recording studio try to help that poor man? During the bridge, I mean, when he stumbled into that giant hornet nest and they all started stinging him.

Crafts
Didn't actually do a craft, but I did go to the introductory safety talk at a library's maker space, so now I can go there and use the equipment.
Things I learned there:
- The Cricut's pressing plate (operating temperature 200'C) is not an elbow rest. (The librarian giving the talk reported that it used to be located in another part of the room, but they kept on leaning their elbow near or on it. It wasn't turned on at the time, but their supervisor saw the writing on the wall and made them relocate it somewhere harder to touch accidentally.)
- The word "Cricut" is pronounced "cricket", not "cry, cut" as I'd thought.

Games
Still slaying the spire. I've now gotten every character up to at least two ascension levels, three for Clad and the Defect.

Weather
So fucking cold. So of course my hot water boiler went on the blink this week. Fortunately it just needed power cycling. Unfortunately I didn't think of this for myself. I'll know next time.

Nature
I saw a kangaroo in my backyard on Monday.
What was it doing there? Hopping.
How did it get there? Through the driveway.
What kind of roo? Eastern grey.
How big was it? Standing upright, I think about as tall as me, but it was too far for me to be sure.
Male or female? I didn't ask. There was something dangling, but I didn't get close enough to see if that was genitals or a joey. Given the height, probably a boomer?
What did you do? Stared at it, took photos, did not approach.
How did you get it out? I didn't. I watched it to make sure it wasn't hurt or sick or stuck, then went to the library for the safety talk. It hopped out again before I got home.
Pics or it didn't happen? For privacy reasons, I am not posting pictures of the kangaroo in a public Dreamwidth post. But I did take photos.
The kangaroo's privacy? Yes. I don't want to antagonise it.

jesse_the_k

I’m up near Rhinelander staying on Flannery Lake. I’ll be reveling in 15:45 hours of daylight on the summer solstice. Today there’s zero wind, while the second-growth white, yellow, and red pine trees are pumping out their jizz with enthusiasm. The lime-yellow grains appear darker as they overlay almost every square inch of the water, with wild swirls and eddies that extend many feet off shore until eventually the black surface reflects many puffy cumulus clouds in a light blue sky.

Lovely to look at, but not so great to breathe. At least we're not bedeviled by wildfire smoke.

( click for pic )

neekabe

I ended up answering a handful of work calls over the weekend. It wasn't a big deal because my plans were 'sew' but because of the afore mentioned eye issues, I was doing that in fits and spurts. But my boss told me to take Monday off in lieu which was nice.

It meant I had easy time to swing by the optometrist and get the prescription they made on Friday. I agree I shouldn't get a proper pair of glasses until things settle, but I figured I could look into getting a cheap pair of online glasses, because it's getting annoying.

Discovered that the main change is that the astigmatism went from -0.5 to -2.00 which is a significant change. And it's annoying because that was my 'good eye' for reading without my glasses on.

Anyways went to one of the online glasses places and discovered if I was willing to pick from a very limited selection and not t care about thin lenses, I could get a pair of glasses for $35, and that includes rush shipping and anti-glare coating. So those should be here next week and should help with the vague headaches lurking on the edges of my brain. I don't know how long it'll be before I see the specialist or how long this will be a valid prescription, but for $35 I don't have to wear them long to be worth it.

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bodies_in_motion

October 2020

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Page Summary

genarti - That art show thing I mentioned last post
kaberett - vital functions
redbird - (no subject)
rmc28 - Events of note this week (mostly hockey)
fred_mouse - (no subject)
kaberett - and so the year turns: solstice
kaberett - egregious backdating for completionism's sake
luzula - Vegetable gardening!
actiaslunaris - Restored from draft to complain...
rmc28 - A week ago I was in Prague
rachelmanija - Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
starwatcher - Free ebooks Friday, June 20
duskpeterson - FIC: The Royal Sanctuary: Jackalfire Grove (Tempestuous Tours)
kaberett - oof but I am having difficulty getting back into routines post-event
jesse_the_k - infinite punchlines from LearnedLeague's Best Worst Answers
nilchance - (no subject)
fred_mouse - Accidental filk
vass - Things
jesse_the_k - Things I Can Only See Up North
neekabe - (no subject)

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Page generated Jun. 23rd, 2025 10:09 pm

embodiment, physicality, movement, bodies and minds

Member Posts

That art show thing I mentioned last post

vital functions

(no subject)

Events of note this week (mostly hockey)

(no subject)

and so the year turns: solstice

egregious backdating for completionism's sake

Vegetable gardening!

Restored from draft to complain...

A week ago I was in Prague

Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Free ebooks Friday, June 20

FIC: The Royal Sanctuary: Jackalfire Grove (Tempestuous Tours)

oof but I am having difficulty getting back into routines post-event

infinite punchlines from LearnedLeague's Best Worst Answers

(no subject)

Accidental filk

Things

Things I Can Only See Up North

(no subject)

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October 2020

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