Never agreeing to do totally insane hours again
May. 4th, 2026 10:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyAfter this week. Because after this week, we should have paid off the gas and electric bills, yay!
But yeah, one or two weeks of crunch is one thing, a string of them is something very different.
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( Read more... )
But yeah, one or two weeks of crunch is one thing, a string of them is something very different.
( Read more... )
¡Aquí estamos, y no nos vamos¡
May. 1st, 2026 09:04 pmchanter1944Subject line seen on a banner carried by multiple people, leading what was likely a significant percentage of East High School's student body on the march to the square, complete with school marching band (and they had mad rhythm, holy cow). Translation: We're here, and we're not going away!
So yes. Sang and chanted up a storm. Marched until I got mildly footsore. Practiced my Spanish comprehension, and honestly, both official language (our mayor and a county supervisor both read proclamations out to the crowd) and prayers are good for that. I do mean that about prayers, too. I am unexpectedly grateful for the opportunity given me by faith leaders and interpreters on the mic - one pastor, one rabbi. Then went down State Street and had a late lunch at a restaurant pretty definitely run by members of the immigrant community. Taste of Sichuan makes delicious seafood noodle wonton soup, for any local folks so inclined. The relative I was with wasn't, and said, summarily, yuck! :)
I don't believe we had any arrests, disturbances, or difficulties today. If we did, someone clue me in. And if I'm being entirely honest, a significant portion of a high school arriving all at once, doubling the assembled crowd and getting a jubilant welcome by the people already there? That was worth the whole day. I wish I'd seen West and Memorial arrive.
So yes. Sang and chanted up a storm. Marched until I got mildly footsore. Practiced my Spanish comprehension, and honestly, both official language (our mayor and a county supervisor both read proclamations out to the crowd) and prayers are good for that. I do mean that about prayers, too. I am unexpectedly grateful for the opportunity given me by faith leaders and interpreters on the mic - one pastor, one rabbi. Then went down State Street and had a late lunch at a restaurant pretty definitely run by members of the immigrant community. Taste of Sichuan makes delicious seafood noodle wonton soup, for any local folks so inclined. The relative I was with wasn't, and said, summarily, yuck! :)
I don't believe we had any arrests, disturbances, or difficulties today. If we did, someone clue me in. And if I'm being entirely honest, a significant portion of a high school arriving all at once, doubling the assembled crowd and getting a jubilant welcome by the people already there? That was worth the whole day. I wish I'd seen West and Memorial arrive.
We'll tell you of a blossom and of buds on every tree
May. 1st, 2026 05:30 pmsovayRabbit, rabbit! For May Day, I made a garland and spatch photographed me. The inspiration was nineweaving.
( And every hair all on your head shines like a silver wire )
And on the porch was sitting the copy of Vivien Alcock's A Kind of Thief (1991) thatosprey_archer had offered a week ago and Hestia had run across my computer to claim, so she will sit on it and I will read it and we will welcome in the spring.
spatch photographed me. The inspiration was nineweaving.( And every hair all on your head shines like a silver wire )
And on the porch was sitting the copy of Vivien Alcock's A Kind of Thief (1991) that
osprey_archer had offered a week ago and Hestia had run across my computer to claim, so she will sit on it and I will read it and we will welcome in the spring.
the word is out, tell the whole city I'm bouncing
May. 1st, 2026 10:27 amchanter1944In other words (that aren't lyrics quoted from the In The Heights movie adaptation), I'm shortly out of here to a May Day protest. I suspect turnout will eclipse the last No Kings utterly; we have the support of Madison's public school teachers and, very probably, students, to the tune of citywide school closures, and atop that, the UW is in session. You know I'll be keeping a language count, singing and chanting myself hoarse, and marching until my feet take notice. You know I'm hoping we make the news, locally and nationally, for all the best reasons and none of the worst ones.
If I need bailing out by the end of this, I'm calling you,meimichan. :) Seriously, if I need someone to throw my bail, it means the ice-hearted and/or some towering racists showed up and tried something reprehensible. That would be monumentally stupid, given Madison's crowds (diverse, peaceful, vocal, and unlikely to tolerate random innocents being snatched for no reason) but given the ice-hearted... well. Let's just hope I'm imagining the unlikely.
If I need bailing out by the end of this, I'm calling you,
meimichan. :) Seriously, if I need someone to throw my bail, it means the ice-hearted and/or some towering racists showed up and tried something reprehensible. That would be monumentally stupid, given Madison's crowds (diverse, peaceful, vocal, and unlikely to tolerate random innocents being snatched for no reason) but given the ice-hearted... well. Let's just hope I'm imagining the unlikely.
Two a Day in April
May. 1st, 2026 07:44 amcanyonwalkerAfter several months of being in a slump with blogging I have once again hit my stretch goal. In the month of April I averaged posting 2 blogs a day. I hit it right on the nose with 60 blogs across April's 30 days. It's my bloggiest month since last year August. (Coincidentally the time before August was last April, when I also posted 60 blogs!)
As virtually always, travel drove my surge in blogging this past month. I started the month on a trip to visit my inlaws, though that wasn't a very bloggy thing. It rarely is. It's the waterfalls-chasing trip to Ohio mid-month that did it. Seven days, including travel time, and I posted nearly 30 blogs about it. That's half the month's tally right there. If we'd stayed home that week, maybe doing a couple of day-trips instead, I'd probably have finished the month at fewer than 40 blogs, remaining in my slump.
So, is April a return to form or just an anomaly? Hard to say right now. I am done with blogging about the Ohio waterfalls trip. With yesterday's three blogs about it I've cleared my backlog! Thus my recent pace of 2-3 blogs a day is going to slow down. Later this month I do have a few trips planned, though one of them is another visit to my inlaws.
As virtually always, travel drove my surge in blogging this past month. I started the month on a trip to visit my inlaws, though that wasn't a very bloggy thing. It rarely is. It's the waterfalls-chasing trip to Ohio mid-month that did it. Seven days, including travel time, and I posted nearly 30 blogs about it. That's half the month's tally right there. If we'd stayed home that week, maybe doing a couple of day-trips instead, I'd probably have finished the month at fewer than 40 blogs, remaining in my slump.
So, is April a return to form or just an anomaly? Hard to say right now. I am done with blogging about the Ohio waterfalls trip. With yesterday's three blogs about it I've cleared my backlog! Thus my recent pace of 2-3 blogs a day is going to slow down. Later this month I do have a few trips planned, though one of them is another visit to my inlaws.
May 2026 Patreon Boost
May. 1st, 2026 09:24 amjames_davis_nicoll
James Nicoll Reviews offers readers reviews of a wide variety of works, as well as the opportunity to point out typos and broken links five days out of seven!
You can help fund James Nicoll Reviews in several ways.
May 2026 Patreon Boost
A Long and Speaking Silence (Singing Hills, volume 7) by Nghi Vo
May. 1st, 2026 09:12 amjames_davis_nicoll
A novice cleric is caught up in a refugee crisis.
A Long and Speaking Silence (Singing Hills, volume 7) by Nghi Vo
Paraphrased comments in the phone game team chat
May. 3rd, 2026 08:58 amconulyAll my responses were silent because they really weren't appropriate for the context, which is that somebody in the thread has a seriously ill relative.
Supportive poster: It's so great that so many of us will come out to support each other with prayer, we're so blessed that this team is so kind, I shall natter on religiously for a really inordinately long comment.
Me: She's being kind and supportive. This is not the time. Don't make it awkward, Connie!
Same supportive poster: Uh, I mean, of course, there are plenty of non-religious people and even atheists who are also really good and kind people too!
Me: God damn it, lady, you just made it awkward! Fuck you so much! Think before you post the first thing, then you won't find yourself making it awkward later!
Supportive poster: It's so great that so many of us will come out to support each other with prayer, we're so blessed that this team is so kind, I shall natter on religiously for a really inordinately long comment.
Me: She's being kind and supportive. This is not the time. Don't make it awkward, Connie!
Same supportive poster: Uh, I mean, of course, there are plenty of non-religious people and even atheists who are also really good and kind people too!
Me: God damn it, lady, you just made it awkward! Fuck you so much! Think before you post the first thing, then you won't find yourself making it awkward later!
podcast friday
May. 1st, 2026 07:00 amsabotabby I have had this one open in a tab most of the week so I would remember to tell you about it. Podside Picnic's "Minnesota NoICE" interviews naomikritzer , lydamorehouse , Marissa Lingen, and J.R. Dawson about their experiences during ICE's occupation of the Twin Cities during Operation Metro Surge.
Look. I think these people are heroes. I think every single person who fought back against a fascist paramilitary that was abducting people from their homes and workplaces, torturing them, putting them in concentration camps, sometimes gunning them down in the streets, is a hero. Any act of resistance that throws sand in those gears is worthy of celebration, and there were a lot of those acts.
The thing is as you can tell by the tagging, I know two of these heroes as people. That to me is what really blew me away listening to this episode. I am currently reading a book about resistance to the Nazis that does amazing work humanizing each and every character, but I don't know any of them personally, so it's easy to imagine that they are somehow larger than life, special people who have qualities that I can never possess. Whereas the folks interviewed in this episode are people basically like me (well, more successful in their writing careers lol) and it was genuinely empowering listening to people just describing what they did. Because it's absolutely heroic but it is heroism that required no particular special skills or background or even executive functioning. A thing needed to be done, they did the thing, they are still doing the thing. It's enough to make you weep.
You still need to do the laundry when the fascists roll in, and this is a podcast episode about that, and everyone should give it a listen.
naomikritzer , lydamorehouse , Marissa Lingen, and J.R. Dawson about their experiences during ICE's occupation of the Twin Cities during Operation Metro Surge.Look. I think these people are heroes. I think every single person who fought back against a fascist paramilitary that was abducting people from their homes and workplaces, torturing them, putting them in concentration camps, sometimes gunning them down in the streets, is a hero. Any act of resistance that throws sand in those gears is worthy of celebration, and there were a lot of those acts.
The thing is as you can tell by the tagging, I know two of these heroes as people. That to me is what really blew me away listening to this episode. I am currently reading a book about resistance to the Nazis that does amazing work humanizing each and every character, but I don't know any of them personally, so it's easy to imagine that they are somehow larger than life, special people who have qualities that I can never possess. Whereas the folks interviewed in this episode are people basically like me (well, more successful in their writing careers lol) and it was genuinely empowering listening to people just describing what they did. Because it's absolutely heroic but it is heroism that required no particular special skills or background or even executive functioning. A thing needed to be done, they did the thing, they are still doing the thing. It's enough to make you weep.
You still need to do the laundry when the fascists roll in, and this is a podcast episode about that, and everyone should give it a listen.
Follow Friday 5-1-26
May. 1st, 2026 03:09 amysabetwordsmith posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
followfridayGot any Follow Friday-related posts to share this week? Comment here with the link(s).
Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".
Indian Run Falls
Apr. 30th, 2026 09:23 pmcanyonwalkerOhio Waterfalls Travelog #25
Dublin, OH · Tue, 21 Apr 2026. 4:30pm
Our third of three waterfalls in town today is Indian Run Falls. Actually it's our third and fourth because there are both upper and lower falls on this short trail behind the school in the very bougie Columbus suburb of Dublin, Ohio.
The trail starts two blocks off the downtown strip and winds around behind the ballfields of the local high school. A few teams were out there, practicing, with music playing loudly on a big bluetooth speaker. Surprisingly the music was like a "Greatest Hits of 1980s Rock" channel with Van Halen, Aerosmith, etc. "Hey, it's 80s music!" Hawk said, not particularly loudly from the forest. And all of a sudden it was like, *needle scratch* the music volume got turned way down. 🤣
We stopped first at this cascade falls. ...Well, I stopped first at this falls. Hawk went on ahead.
The trail crosses over a bridge above this falls and doubles back along the opposite side of the canyon.
From the far side were were able to catch a glimpse of the lower falls. It's mostly obscured behind trees and undergrowth. To capture the photo photo I've included here I had to find just the right spot— safe spot— along the canyon rim and reach up to get a clear view. This isn't really a sit-and-enjoy spot. You can't actually see the falls if you sit. 🤷
We headed back around to the near side of the canyon. This time I got Hawk to explore the upper falls with me. Mostly I did that by going down first and assuring her it was within her current capability range. As you can see in the photo, she walks with a cane. As I noted in another blog recently, strong hiking skills, weak hiking body.
Dublin, OH · Tue, 21 Apr 2026. 4:30pm
Our third of three waterfalls in town today is Indian Run Falls. Actually it's our third and fourth because there are both upper and lower falls on this short trail behind the school in the very bougie Columbus suburb of Dublin, Ohio.
The trail starts two blocks off the downtown strip and winds around behind the ballfields of the local high school. A few teams were out there, practicing, with music playing loudly on a big bluetooth speaker. Surprisingly the music was like a "Greatest Hits of 1980s Rock" channel with Van Halen, Aerosmith, etc. "Hey, it's 80s music!" Hawk said, not particularly loudly from the forest. And all of a sudden it was like, *needle scratch* the music volume got turned way down. 🤣
We stopped first at this cascade falls. ...Well, I stopped first at this falls. Hawk went on ahead.
The trail crosses over a bridge above this falls and doubles back along the opposite side of the canyon.
From the far side were were able to catch a glimpse of the lower falls. It's mostly obscured behind trees and undergrowth. To capture the photo photo I've included here I had to find just the right spot— safe spot— along the canyon rim and reach up to get a clear view. This isn't really a sit-and-enjoy spot. You can't actually see the falls if you sit. 🤷
We headed back around to the near side of the canyon. This time I got Hawk to explore the upper falls with me. Mostly I did that by going down first and assuring her it was within her current capability range. As you can see in the photo, she walks with a cane. As I noted in another blog recently, strong hiking skills, weak hiking body.
Metropolitan Police Radio Callsigns
Apr. 30th, 2026 08:19 pminferiorwit posting in little_detailsHi, folks!
I'm currently writing crime fiction set in contemporary London, and I'm trying to figure out whether a police officer on the radio would be specifically identifiable to someone listening in.
Does the Met use radio callsigns that are unique to each officer? Or are callsigns assigned to specific beats, instead? Or a secret third thing?
Thanks!
Free for All Saturday, Week 18 [DW Edition]
May. 2nd, 2026 12:45 am↑↑↑ Available dates:
May 5 & 7
May 12 & 14
May 19 & 21
Happy Saturday, everyone! Are you ready for this week's Free for All? :D? There are no themes to follow for prompts or fills. Btw, if you perhaps missed a prompt theme that you liked, or you've had any ideas that didn't really work with Tuesday's or Thursday's posts, then today's your chance to prompt 'em. Be free, and have fun! ✎
Just a few rules:
1. No more than five prompts in a row.
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3. Use the character's full name and the fandom's full name for ease in adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
4. No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
5. If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
6. If your story has possible triggers, please warn for them in the subject line!
Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt
Are today's prompts not catching your eye? No worries, because we have plenty of older prompts that just might do the trick! You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^
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