megwrites | Reading

1. Today was the last of my recent round of store visits, to the Little Tokyo store. Since I didn't need to go to any other stores in addition, and was just planning to work from home in the afternoon, I decided to take the train instead of driving. In good traffic (which I would have had based on the time of day), it would be about half an hour or so by car, and the train trip is 45 minutes, so it's not significantly longer (and during rush hour can be as much as half the time), and there's now a station right in the heart of Little Tokyo, so it's just a couple blocks' walk to the store. I got my mid day walk in that way, and was able to stop and get lunch while I was down there as well. The Korean corn dog place is still there, so that was lunch, and Carla had stopped at Beard Papa when she was out doing stuff and sent me a picture of their new sakura matcha cream puff, so I stopped at the Beard Papa in Little Tokyo to get one of those before heading back as well. And bonus, even though the train only cost me $1.75 each way, I'm submitting my mileage reimbursement for work as if I'd driven. :p

2. I have to wear insoles with my shoes or I get terrible foot pain, but for some reason the ones I have can be very squeaky. I tried some of the tips for making insoles stop squeaking, but it didn't work, so I ordered a different brand ones, which I found on some hiking website as like the best of the best, and they came today and do not squeak! The fit is honestly not quite as good as the ones I usually get, but I also just wore them for a little over a mile walk this evening, so I'm hoping that I can break them in a bit more before our trip.

3. Look at these calico beans of Chloe's!

queen_ypolita

Finished since the last reading post
Finished The Young Alexander, which worked a lot on archaeological detail into the story of Philip transforming Macedon to what it was when Alexander was growing up, and that was really interesting and to some extent new to me.

Finally, finally finished On Thin Ice. Really didn't warm to it at all.

Currently reading
Still reading The Indian Clerk and mostly finding it interesting, although it still isn't quite what I expected. Also reading If This Gets Out, a YA novel about two boy band members, by Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich.

Also started reading Red Closet: The Hidden History of Gay Oppression in the USSR by Rustam Alexander.

Reading next
No idea, but I seem to be buying books, both physical and electronic, at a faster pace I'm actually reading them. So probably something I already have lying around.

torachan

1. Today when I was just coming back to the store from my after-lunch walk, I saw some people coming out who looked familiar and realized it was Bill and Lisa, a couple of local travel/food vloggers we watch occasionally. I told them I like their channel and they were very friendly.

2. Only one more week of work before vacation! Trying not to stress out about it too much, but there are so many things to stress out about. At least LAX does not seem to be affected by the TSA/ICE issues other airports are facing.

3. Gemma has such a kittenish look in this picture! Those eyes!

rachelmanija

Ezra, an Ojibwe teenager, has to flee Minneapolis when the home of the racist teenager who bullied him burns down, and he becomes the prime suspect. He goes to Canada to run traplines with his grandfather.

Where Wolves Don't Die is mostly a coming of age story; the thriller/mystery element is present but minor. It was recommended to me "Like an Ojibwe Hatchet," which definitely captures a lot of the vibe though it's about learning in community and family rather than isolation. Ezra goes from boy to man while he learns the old ways with his grandfather, who he loves. It's engrossing and moving. I liked that Ezra actively wants to stay with and learn from his grandfather rather than resisting it and having to come around.

Content notes: Hunting and trapping is central to the story.

torachan

1. The only big thing I had on my work to-do list today was a meeting, but that was online anyway, so I decided to work from home. I really didn't have a lot of smaller things that needed to get done, either, so it was a pretty chill day.

And the meeting itself was very informative. It was with some people from our store in Guam, who are already using the system we'll be switching to, and I wanted to get an idea of how they're doing some of the things that seem impossible, and it turns out they just aren't lol. So I'm going to see if it would be possible for us to do something similar rather than to try and force our workflow into the mold that IT is insisting on.

2. It was actually chilly today! We closed windows and almost considered turning on the heater. The high was still in the high 70s, but that was just like a brief spike in the late afternoon. So weird. :-/ I'll take it over the constant heat of last week, though.

3. I finished up a puzzle today. This one turned out to be more difficult than I was anticipating, but it was fun to do. And I really love the illustration.

4. One nice thing about working from home is that I can snuggle Jasper when he wants to be snuggled, and he really wanted to be snuggled this morning.

rachelmanija

An epistolatory novel about the friendship between an American Jew, Max, and a German, Martin. As Hitler rises to power, their relationship sours, in some expected ways and some less expected, as their characters are revealed.

Very short, very powerful, very technically skilled, a quick easy read with an unexpected and unforgettable outcome. Seriously, don't click on spoilers if there's any chance you'll read the book. That being said, I read it because Naomi Kritzer told me the whole story and it was still great. Thanks for the rec!

The book was published in 1939 under a male-sounding pseudonym, but the style feels almost modern and the themes feel incredibly modern. There's an afterword about what inspired the book, which which is worth reading. Taylor had some German friends who seemed like kind, wonderful people, who became fervent Nazis and abandoned their Jewish friends. In a question so many of us are asking now, she wondered, What changed their hearts so? What steps brought them to such cruelty?

( Read more... )

torachan

1. We had a great day at Disneyland this morning. So many tasty things to eat!

2. The weather today was similar to yesterday, though a little warmer and sunnier through the afternoon. But got very overcast and chilly at night again, whereas this past week it was staying warmer even at night, which I am not a fan of.

3. I finished tweaking the cat/house-sitting document (really just had to edit a bit from last year rather than write it up from scratch) and did a walk through with Alex and her girlfriend tonight. Last time we were only gone for a little over a week and the cats never did get too used to Nessie, but hopefully this time since we'll be gone two weeks, they'll feel a little more comfortable with her by the end. Alex comes over every Sunday for several hours a week, so they are chill with her, but they're used to us being there, too, and also Alex will not be the main one doing the cat sitting.

4. I got some really cute pics of Tuxie in the planter this afternoon.

torachan

This week we made our reservation for Sunday rather than Saturday because today is the first day of a huge new Bluey-themed event at Disneyland.

( Read more... )

jesse_the_k

We were delighted by Shadow’s response to his first visitors last night. We kept him crated until they’d seated themselves ready to watch the first two eps of Slings & Arrows. He made not a peep when they arrived nor during our typically uproarious dinner. Once we let him out of the crate, he observed them closely. One guest had recently enjoyed a hot-and-sour sauce on her egg roll. She invited him closer and he licked her hands! He permitted the other to pet his back. He curled up in his bed (immediately below the TV) and peacefully admired the assembled multitude.

Early this AM MyGuy placed one of Shadow’s beds on my side of our bed. Around 6AM he tip tip tap tipped into the bedroom and curled up in it, keeping me company for 45 minutes.

He was in the breezeway with MyGuy 20 minutes ago, having just come back from his evening constitutional. Just as his lead was unhooked, the leonine March wind blew open the door to the backyard. Shadow was out like a shot. MyGuy called him back, but he kept backing up. At last, MyGuy leaned on the garage holding the door open, and Shadow scooted right back in to the breezeway.

The wisdom around rescues is a rule of 3: 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to learn routines, and 3 months to feel fully at home. We’re on track.

(Got to get some Shadow icons!)

dancesontrains

Challenge #6

Top 10 Challenge.

The category(ies) you choose are up to you. You can give top 10 Fics you read last year, the top 10 songs to create to, the top 10 guest stars on your favorite show, top 10 characters in your favorite book series, top 10... well, you get the idea.

I was very stuck on this for some time - hence the lack of updates since January - but then I remembered that last year I participated in the subreddit r/GraphicNovels's tournament of Top Twenty graphic novels (actually any form of sequential art even vaguely applicable, the guy running the Tournament joked that he was waiting for someone to send in a long tapestry as one of their faves)

My matchup - I was very soundly trounced in the first round by one of the most prolific posters there, and rightly so https://www.reddit.com/r/graphicnovels/comments/1o5ssuv/tournament_of_lists_2025_all_time_top_20_comics/

The eventual winner, it's a really interesting collection and I had a good time thinking of what to add- https://www.reddit.com/r/graphicnovels/comments/1omr7k3/congratulations_to_americantabloid3_for_winning/

The only work I regret not including is Calvin and Hobbes, which I read as an adult and have loved ever since.

Current Location: bed

torachan

1. It's still supposed to be unseasonably warm next week, but today seems to be a little break in the weather. When I went out for my walk this morning, it was a bit foggy (though it had burned off by the time I got home), and then while it was sunny for a while midday, around 2pm it got overcast again and has stayed that way. It was really foggy again when we took our walk tonight, too.

2. I made a rhubarb pie earlier and we're going to have some of that for dessert. We still have a bunch of baggies of chopped rhubarb in the freezer from when we were buying it from the farmers market last year lol.

3. Ollie loves to snuggle on my clothes. :)

torachan

Recently Finished
Lucky Stiff
Third book in the Lillian Byrd murder mystery series.

The Cartographers
When the MC's father dies, she finds an old road map in his things, the source of a massive fight years ago that resulted in him cutting ties with her and blackballing her from the cartography world. In trying to figure out why her father would have kept the map, she learns about not only the secrets of the map itself, but about her parents. I enjoyed this but it was very slow for the first half or so.

The Hanging Tree
A woman goes on a writing retreat at a remote manor and learns of a local legend about a young woman who was hanged as a witch on the property and decides that's what she wants her next book to be about. The book is told in dual timelines with the present being about her research and the past being the actual events. I liked this, but there was way too much romance focus in both the past and present.

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
Graphic novel about the author's relationship with her parents, especially focused on caring for them in their final years. I really liked this a lot.

Huda F Cares? and Huda F Wants to Know?
Second and third books in the Huda F series of YA graphic novels about a very religious Muslim teen loosely based on the author's life. I continue to enjoy this series.

Hatsukoi no Tsugi vol. 3
Final volume in this companion series to Koi-iji. I liked this a lot.

sanguinity

Life has been very busy and I am behind on posting all the things, but this morning I had a few free hours. I spent it writing fic.

Better than Tons of Gold and Cases of Diamonds

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas for PhoenixFalls
Edmond Dantès/Abbé Faria
Imprisonment, Canon Compliant, Making the Subtext Text, No Betas We Die Like Abbé Faria
Major Character death, 1300 words

Dantès swore that nothing but death would part them. Nothing but death did. Scenes from a sort of marriage.

The last couple of weeks, I've been reading The Count of Monte Cristo with

monte-cristo-daily. We're only just past the Château d'If, so please don't spoil me, I know nothing. (Right now Dantès is buying everyone boats: I heartily approve!)

But from the moment Abbé Faria was introduced, I shipped it. Alas, when I turned to AO3, I discovered this was a "when not even the sickos on AO3 have your back" kind of moment. So I fixed that. ;-)

Inaugural post for the 'ship, hooray!

spiralsheep

It's a wrap! Or a warp. I like to offer you an informed choice. ;-)

Film: Nouvelle Vague, 2025, is US / French film about the making of A bout de souffle. So it's a Richard Linklater homage to Jean-Luc Godard - a movie god making a film about a god of cinema, or at least a godard of cinema. Exactly as you'd expect in every way. I felt it didn't quite deserve full marks due to minor blandness and predictability, but there are no actual faults with the film: the audience gets what it deserves. ;-) 4.5/5
P.S. That dance scene from Bande à part referenced again (but Le Week-End is still my fave recreation).
P.P.S. So, now I've mentioned the other film, Nouvelle Vague has a smart script with slick direction and cinematography and production... but it's also sorta shallow compared to Le Week-End, which gave audiences three truly great film actors* allowed space by the director to explore everyday human experience in depth. Both movies focus on trivia, one more intellectually and one more emotionally, but only one of them finds additional profundity. Quoting philosophical one-liners is not in itself a profound activity and any parrot can be trained to do it. Nouvelle Vague is a tribute, while Le Week-End is an original.
* Lindsay Duncan, Jim Broadbent, and Jeff Goldblum.

Film: Grass, a Nation's Battle for Life, 1925, US / Bakhtiari documentary film about the seasonal migration of 50,000 of the Bakhtiari (Lurs) and all their sheep, goats, cows, horses, donkeys, and dogs from exhausted pasture to fresh pasture, across several rivers including the Karun and over a snow covered mountain pass through the 4,221m Zard-Kuh subrange. Just crossing the river takes a week! (Spoiler for history: when the team considered remaking the film in 1947 they were told the migration was now done mostly in cars and trucks.) It is, of course, a silent movie, although the music track for the screening I attended was painfully ear-splittingly loud for no apparent reason. There are explanatory intertitles throughout, beginning with typical USian self-congratulatory racism about "Aryans" supposedly originating in West Asia and progressing westwards as civilisation progressed... with the implication that Hollywood is the peak of human culture, lmao (USians: so modest!). If you're wondering why the intertitles keep shouting "Yo, Ali!" it's because the Bakhtiari are Shia Muslims.
Presenter: Marguerite Harrison.
Conclusion: worth seeing on a BIG screen for the spectacle, but the commentary is as racist as most "Aryan" ethnography of the time. No rating.

Film: Köln 75, 2025, is a German film about... well, that's a problem because it doesn't know what it's about. ( Cut for moaning. )
Conclusion: the filmmakers and their male gaze didn't find Vera Brandes that interesting as a central subject, they couldn't focus on their hero Keith Jarrett, so they produced a confused hash spiced up with teenage girl sex-appeal for their chosen audience. No rating because the film is too inconsistent.
P.S. There's a documentary, Lost in Köln, 2025, which I haven't seen but I'm guessing would be a more worthwhile investment of time than... whatever this was that I watched.
P.P.S. Only fun if you understand German but... Floh de Cologne - Sei Ruhig Fließbandbaby.

* Piano tuners being a hot theme for movies made in 2025 for some reason?

Current Music: Floh de Cologne - Sei Ruhig Fließbandbaby

azurelunatic

... Make better choices.

Yellface went into Mila's room, hid under a table, beefed with Mila in some fashion, and was hauled ignominiously out.

As for me, my rescheduled retina appointment went fine. Some of the issues have cleared up. Prognosis very good. I had to transfer between power chair and clinic chair three times. As I told them on the final occasion: I have a bad knee and a worse knee. Trying CBD ointment in addition to Voltaren, on the advice of my now-former primary care. (And I know who my new primary care is going to be, yay.)

It's possible that my retina appointments this year are cursed. On the last attempt, my car was so low on battery that it died at an intersection and there was a whole drama with a guy who scared the whole block and tried to open my car door. This time we got there okay, but Belovedest suffered a flat tire while out with

alexseanchai later in the day. This wrapped up with Thorn having to come rescue that Toaster with a wrench that actually fit the nuts. (Cue penis measuring jokes.)

torachan

1. It is the weekend! Today was fairly hassle-free, work-wise, and I got home by like four or so, which was nice, but it's even nicer to not have work tomorrow.

2. I found a new puzzle site to order from and I really like that they mark their puzzles with a no AI guarantee. (Not all of their puzzles have this guarantee, but you can filter for it and the majority of them seem to be.) I hope other sites implement that as well, because it would definitely make me more likely to order from a site that did that.

3. Carla got a catnip chew rope the other day and all the cats have shown some interest in it, but Molly seems to especially like it. No one's that into actually chewing it, though, just rubbing and writhing lol.

jesse_the_k

From that reliable source of journal prompts, thefridayfive

1) What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

Volunteered for WisCon in 2007, clearly LJ was where everything was Happening. Took me a year to figure out the culture. Moved to DW on 1 May 2009.

2) How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

79! Most are evidently dormant. (DW comms never die.)

3) Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

I love the questions and answers at little_details, where writers seek specifics about an infinite assortment of facts: paint manufacturing, historical Chinese tornadoes, NZ slang for three examples.

4) How did you pick your user name?

It’s a riff on my wallet name which I’ve been using it since 2001.

5) If you could change your user name, would you?

Nope.

rachelmanija

This spooky ghost story has a central pairing that I feel like I may have requested as an original work: Widow/Female Fake Psychic/Ghost of a Female Bog Body.

My Darling Dreadful Thing is set in the Netherlands in the 1950s, which is a selling point all by itself as I love unusual settings. Roos is a young woman whose abusive fake psychic mother forces her to participate in her fake seances. But though Roos does not communicate with the spirits sought by the desperate, grieving customers, she actually does have a spirit companion, a bog body whom Roos has bound to her and named Ruth.

Roos is delighted when Agnes, a biracial (Indonesian/Dutch) widow, takes her as a companion and spirits her away to her neglected Gothic mansion in the middle of nowhere. The mansion is otherwise occupied only by Agnes's sister-in-law, Willamine, who is dying of tuberculosis, and has a marvellously bizarre Gothic history. Roos falls hard in love with Agnes, with whom she has a surprising amount in common.

But this whole story is being told in retrospect, as a series of interviews Roos is having with a psychiatrist who is trying to determine whether she's mentally fit to stand trial for murder. Something very bad happened at the mansion...

( Read more... )

Very enjoyable, very gothic, very atmospheric. I'm excited to read van Veen's other two books. I looked her up to see if she's actually from the Netherlands (yes) and learned that she's one of a set of non-identical triplet sisters! I don't think I've ever read a book by a triplet before.

rydra_wong

James Davis Nicoll: Let’s Talk This Over: What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed

Yes I pre-ordered it blind, have you even met me.

torachan

1. All week I have consistently felt like it was one day further into the week than it was, and not for any reason I can pinpoint (like there wasn't anything that was on a different day than it usually is or anything), so there were a couple times today when I was like, glad it's Friday and then realized there was still another Friday, but now tomorrow is actually Friday for real and then the weekend! And in two weeks from today I will be on a plane to Japan!

2. It was so hot today I could barely take a half mile walk today at lunch, but I did stop and get a delicious teriyaki beef sandwich and freshly made lilikoi malasada while I was out.

3. Chloe really loves relaxing on Carla's bed, especially on the top half. She's got this nice window there, too.

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

a library of souls

reading

Reading

Daily Happiness

Wednesday reading

Daily Happiness

Where Wolves Don't Die, by Anton Treuer

Daily Happiness

Address Unknown, by Kathrine Kressman Taylor

Daily Happiness

2026 Disneyland Trip #15 (3/22/26)

Shadow Update: Hosting & Bedding

Snowflake Challenge: day 6

Daily Happiness

Weekly Reading

Fic: The Count of Monte Cristo

In which there is a belated happy Persian new year (according to the bus queue)

Cat ...

Daily Happiness

The Friday Five: Journal History

My Darling Dreadful Thing, by Johanna van Veen

NEW CAMERON REED NOVEL OUT APRIL 7. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Daily Happiness

Expand Cut Tags