Passing For Normal

Happy birthday, marshtide!

I don't want to make any claims for stamina in case tomorrow when I have an appointment I can't leave the house, but for months it has reliably exhausted me to walk around my own neighborhood and after two days out and about I did spend most of this one curled up, but I also left the house in the midafternoon to acquire a plate of baba dip from Noor because I was jonesing for eggplant and later walked back out on a fish-oriented supermarket run in the thickening rain. I stayed an extra hour at my desk because Hestia was in full Llyan mode, swattily objecting when I ceased from petting her as she purred like a turbine underneath the mermaid lamp. The evening's bedmaking was similarly delayed by her commandeering of the clean laundry with her precise and possessively kneading small paws. It does feel like a change that I am not utterly wiped out by household chores. Now if my brain would just decide to rejoin the party. In that vague direction, I am continuing to enjoy Apple TV's Widow's Bay (2026–) which delighted me beyond measure this week not even by featuring a sea hag who explodes when spear-gunned into tide-flat brine—I treasured a Magic card along those lines—but by having shot a scene at Half Moon Beach in Gloucester. I recognized it from its boulders of Cape Ann granite: I have climbed over their tectonic jumble and dozed on them and been photographed on them by spatch, the sticky basement rock of my local microcontinent. I am not used to fictitious islands confected out of coasts I know. It makes me want to visit them. In the meantime I read about the doused and sunken chain of the New England Seamounts.

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

Two NYC policemen are investigating the lair of a eyeball-collecting serial killer...

(no gore)
( Read more... )

I've finally cleared the techno industrial out of my system enough to be able to listen to The Essential Alan Parsons Project. Although I didn't remember them the way I did "Eye in the Sky," I've apparently heard "Time" and "Don't Ask Me" before, while I've heard part of "Sirius" played as an intro piece in a few sports things before. Today I mostly listened to disc 2 of the set, which sounds very 70s and mostly lived in a progressive and "yacht" rock pocket as its genre.

The saxophone bits in some places reminded me very strongly of a song I haven't thought about in a while but that takes me firmly back to a place and time when I hear it. If you were alive in 1978 and beyond, you've probably heard it. According to Wikipedia, Billboard described it as having "the most recognizable sax riff in music history." It actually has a great guitar riff too.

It's "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty. (And the sax riff was played by a musician named like a Vampire the Masquerade character: Raphael Ravenscroft.)


I hear this song, and suddenly I'm a child in the backseat of a car driving through Long Island.

I finished watching Sharp Downpour yesterday:

( spoilers )

I woke up from a bizarre dream and immediately ended up with a phone call from the dentist saying they're sending me to collection if I don't pay now. I call them up and said whoa, you sent this bill back to my insurance and that was the last I heard of it (until yesterday. I did see a bill from them) I thought it was taken care of. It wasn't so I paid that.

I argue with the hotel people in Louisville to add a day to my reservation. Yes I know you can't give me the block price. That's fine. Stop apologizing and just add a day at full price. It's fine. I'll live.

I ran to Jackson to get meds and money and to relax a little before coming home.

I get home, finish my test for tomorrow and then realize I forgot I had a meeting today to learn this new syllabus software in Ohio's latest political overreach push (everything about my class has to be online, every topic, every room I'm in, every school I've ever attended)

By the time that was over it was time to start on my wacky wild Victorian/Edwardian medicine power point. I finished it at 11 pm. It's 40 slides. That should be plenty. I wanted more than I need better too long than too short. (I've been in these before twice when it was too short and it's awkward and annoying)

Finally start to pack. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. I still can't find my belt purse. NO clue where it is and I don't have time for this so suck it up and carry my tote bag with my little wallet and phone.

Tomorrow is going to be a nightmare between tests, finishing packing and driving nearly 4 hours at night.

Neighbors are watching Rocket.


So that dream. I was in some fancy all inclusive resort. It was very crowded. I had the vague feeling my family was with me. Also with me was my tenor sax and it's evening. I crack it out near the pool, shocked that the pads haven't dried out and fallen off. Suddenly I'm in the pool, wailing on this sax and people are into it. Water is splashing everywhere and people are telling me how great I am at this while I'm thinking I can't breathe, I havent' done this in years, I don't remember my fingering. Can I even still read music?

Someone claiming to be Frank Sinatra's kid (but didn't look older than me) wanted me to play for some party. I trot off and tell my brother about this. He is suitably impressed but then I get separated from everyone and I'm trying to find my room (in this high rise hotel). I'm in the elevator with escapees from a werewolf/vampire/goth movie and once I get to my floor it's chaos.

I don't know where to go ( cut because it gets gross )



What I Just Finished Reading:

Keeper of Lonely spirits - LGBT paranormal with older mains. - I liked this one

Death al Dente - crap

What I am Currently Reading:

The Death Card - is uncomfortably close to another series I've read with Afrocentric magic users (and the racist white ones getting in their way in New Orleans)

Dungeons and Danger - a paranormal mystery Vikings didn't have horned helmets for the love of god stop with the horns


What I Plan to Read Next:

Hooked on Murder - lousy so far

I'm too tired to share April's books. You'll get them next week.

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

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Over the last week...

Posted and commented on bnha_fans.

Commented on booknook.

Commented on worderlands.

Commented on getyourwordsout.

I'm delighted to announce that my poem "the jacarandas are unimpressed by your show of force," published by Strange Horizons, is a 2026 Rhysling Award finalist, amid a plethora of wonderful poems.

Last year, when I wrote the poem, the jacarandas had taken their time blooming, but this year they are already going to town.

Considering how he seemed to regard Max Lord’s Justice League, one might expect Superman to hallucinate this in his last few minutes of life:

ICE: Whoa, I can’t believe you won, Superman! Doomsday seemed like he was too much even for you!
SUPERMAN: I…(haff)…I did what I had to, Ice…it’s only what any COMPETENT superhero would have done…
GUY: Yeah, it’s almost as rocksauce as how I woulda done it!
ICE: Here, let me ice your wounds. Your body clearly needs… 💖 lots of attention 💖 …
MAXIMA: A magnificent demonstration of f#ckability, Kryptonian. [shoves aside Ice, who flies through the air and falls into a dumpster] Now, we bang.
‘‘BLOODWYND’’: I am also impressed. Or am I? I refuse to tell you anything about myself. I am…me. That is all you need to know!
BOOSTER: Hold still while I get a victory selfie with you, Supes!
SUPERMAN: Ack…(choke)…
FIRE: Oh, me next! My new costume’ll really pop if we get Doomsday’s bloody corpse in the background!
BLUE BEETLE: Hope you don’t mind, I just sold the rights to Doomsday’s body as the site of a new casino!
SUPERMAN: I…I can’t take it anymore…kkkkkkk…kk.
BLUE BEETLE: …Supes?
( GUY GARDNER: Wow. What a wuss! )

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes. Hmm, okay, I feel like this was 80% incomprehensible and I was actively resenting my decision to finish reading it but I was maybe into the last couple chapters? There was at least some interesting poetical concepts and phrasing.

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In TV, I finished watching Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (season 2) which continues to be a ridiculous, clunky show about chasing monsters and having family trauma and I love it. flareonfury harpieicons has been making icons so I finally have an icon of my faves, the 50s era squad. I did actually watch the Kong: Skull Island movie (which I think was weak despite Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson being hot) before this season and it gave some context but wasn't ultimately necessary. Random thoughts ( spoilers )

In tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )

And that's where we left off.

Title: 'The Exhibit'
Fandom: Original Fiction
Rating: G
Notes: Crossposted to anythingdrabble and vocab_drabbles

( The Exhibit )

1. They opened an Ikea near us! Previously the closest ones were about twenty miles away, but this one is more like five. We need to get another shelf for in the garage (Carla's album collection has grown beyond the shelf its been sharing with my puzzles), so we're going to go check it out this weekend.

2. Yesterday at work I heard a song playing and shazammed it and found out that Damiano David of Manneskin has a solo career, so when I got home I gave his album a listen and it's really good! The song I heard at work was Zombie Lady and I think it might be my favorite off the album but there are a lot of other great tracks, too.



3. Jasper being a brave boy at the vet on Monday.

Got up this morning at 11:00 and had breakfast, then put in a Shipt order, and then had coffee.

The Shipt order came and I put it away. I puttered around, did a little cleaning, then at 2:30 I got the notice that my copy of the new Jim Butcher Harry Dresden novella, Out Law, had been delivered. I ordered it Tuesday after midnight so this was next day delivery.

I collected it and immediately started reading it. It's just as good and enjoyable as the rest of the series. It's 194 or so pages, so longer than you would expect. I finished it around 5:00.

Then I put on some clothes and took out the garbage and walked around the block. It had been raining but was stopped.

My psychiatrist called and we talked. Then I puttered on the computer until 7:oo when I Teamed the FWiB. I idn't think there was a D&D game tonight but I popped into Discord on my phone at 8:00 and again at 8:10 to make sure and no one else was there. So we talked til 8:40.

Then I had dinner, and went to the bedroom. I got started thinking about a book I read back in the 70s that I would like to read again, and took a guess at the title. I looked up that title an I was right! I found it in Thriftbooks for about $13 so I ordered it. Star Rider by Doris Piserchia.

Then it was pet feeding time so I fed the pets, and started here.

Tomorrow I go and donate blood.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2. Got the new Harry Dresden.

3. Avoided the rain when I took out the garbage.

4. Remembered the title of that book.

5. Thriftbooks.

6. My psychiatrist.

Just wanted to share a quick video I thought y'all would appreciate.

REALLY interested in Sinker Sound. Big, big fan of fishing games and rhythm games. I can't believe I never thought to have them in the same game! The other two that interested me were RUBATO and Mr. Sleepy Man. Did any games catch your interest?


This is the first video I've seen by sl1ppey, but they're incredibly fun to watch while giving honest and legitimate reviews of the games they're showcasing.