cimorene | Reading

Since my last post, I've read seven books, including another reread of Think of England by KJ Charles that I didn't log on goodreads. I got a print copy of The Duke at Hazard, book two of a KJ Charles Regency romance series featuring rogue/aristocrat pairings, and enjoyed it so much I requested book one, The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting, which I had previously failed out of as an audiobook several hours in due to fearing the next scene would bring awkward dubiously consensual sex. My fears proved unfounded, and upon completing it I immediately checked out the ebook novella sequel with the long lost brother, but then failed out of that when one character proposed robbing a magistrate. I'm too stressed out by fictional characters' poor life choices. But The Duke at Hazard was a delightful romp and allegedly based on a Georgette Heyer novel. I should probably read something by Heyer since she's the foundation of the genre.

torachan

1. I preordered the Ocarina of Time remake today. It comes out on 11/5, so not that long from now. I never played the previous remake (though we did buy it) so it's been a while, plus it's really been totally redone, so I'm looking forward to checking it out.

2. We're supposed to get rain tomorrow and Thursday. Hopefully not in a way that interferes with my routine too much. It's nice and cool this evening (and has been pretty nice all day, though I was cooped up in a meeting all day and didn't go out during the day).

3. Molly loves my chair so much. And no one else seems to care about it, so it's nice that she can enjoy it without anyone else fighting over it. (Though sometimes I have to kick her out, alas.)

phosfate

We had a two-day office retreat, which wasn't really a retreat since we did it in the basement. The ringmaster was a nice lady from Pigeon Forge who couldn't find much to hate about us, but I feel uncomfortable when a Southerner tells me, "You are SO FUNNY!" because I can't tell if it's passive-aggressive or not. Like when we were cleaning up and I put our spaghetti stick and marshmallow tower in the bin, saying, "Part of the beauty of art is its impermanence." "You are SO FUNNY!"

Anyway, my phone was supposed to show up at 8 pm on Friday, which it did not. Then it was supposed to show up between 11 and 1 on Saturday. It did not. The truck did. The driver, a nice fella called Alex, sat on the stoop with me after rooting through his truck for ten minutes and saying he was SUPPOSED to have it, and yet it was not there. I woke up Sunday to an email saying they attempted delivery at 10 am and left a hang tag on the door. There was no hang tag on the door. Then I got an email saying they had attempted delivery on Friday and left a hang tag on the door, which BUDDY WE'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS. So I got online to Fedex customer support, which was a deeply stupid AI with very thin skin. So I phoned Fedex and got an actual human. "Okay, would you like me to send the package to one of our stores so you can go in when you like and sign for it there?" "DEAR GOD YES PLEASE THANK YOU." So it went to the store across from the mall. I took a Lyft there, leaving my cane in the back of the car, got my phone, and negotiated entering the mall on foot without a cane. This was extremely dangerous -- American malls are not designed for foot traffic entrance -- and really quite painful, but I got to the bus shelter there and messaged the Lyft driver about my cane. I have heard nothing from him. I took the bus to work and limped to our building, setting up the new phone with a human on chat in between phone calls. I managed to get it mostly set up without swallowing the stupid paper chip, but couldn't figure out why its charge was so half-assed because (all together now) Bluetooth is automatically set to Suck me dry. I found my shitty backup cane. Assuming driver ever contacts me, getting my cane back will cost me $20, or the exact cost of a replacement cane.

Took the bus home and played Pokemon Go in the parking lot across from my house until Movie Pals time (We watched Creature from the Black Lagoon). Someone took a pot-metal figurine of a frog sitting on top of a book called GAME OF FROGS), painted it in bright green and red, and cemented it to the base of one of the lamp poles. Make your own public art, friends, and don't get caught.

Still waiting for a refund from the vendor of my original phone.

Today a Team Rocket guy on Pokemon Go is running a team of three Magikarp. Magikarp are large goldfish who don't really do anything except flop around until, under certain circumstances, they evolve into a badass sea serpent called Gyarados. So I've got a 2000 XP Hitmonlee just beating the shit out of these poor things. I have so many questions about why this guy has this team.

Current Mood: lethargic
Current Location: cubetown
Current Music: desk fan

princessofgeeks

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princessofgeeks

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princessofgeeks

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princessofgeeks

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torachan

1. Yesterday I stopped at 99 Ranch on my bike ride because I thought I might want to have our new favorite ma-la noodles for lunch, only to find that they were out of them and there was no space on the shelf. I'm hoping that either they just filled the space with something else while it was temporarily out of stock or they stopped selling it at that location, which is a smaller one, but that others are still selling them. Today after lunch I walked up to the one near work and was relieved to find they still had them, so I bought six packages (it's a single serving pack). We might stockpile a little more just in case they really are getting discontinued or something but hopefully there's nothing to worry about! At any rate, we've got three meals to look forward to with what I bought today.

2. I had another 5pm meeting tonight, which sucks, but! The meeting was to formally announce to the company president and president of the Hawaii branch, about the new schedule for our project, which has been up in the air for like six months or more. And the meeting went quickly, since they had been briefed ahead of time and this was just a formal announcement, so we were done before 5:30, but also this means that I can now actually plan things, like our trip to Japan next year, which is going to have to be about a month earlier than the last two years, early March instead of early April, but for a while it looked like there might not even be a good time to take vacation next spring, so I'm very glad of that, and also just in general glad to have a fixed schedule and know what's coming up. We won't actually start back to work on the project until next March with this new schedule, so for the next few months I'll be back to doing more with the area managers, which is fine.

3. It was still warm today (low 80s in mid October, no thank you), but much better than the past few days, so I'll take it.

4. I got a nice nighttime picture of Tuxie yesterday.

princessofgeeks

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histoirede posting in

fictional_fans

Hello everyone :)

I am looking for art meme templates, things like "draw 6 characters" or the likes. Do you have any saved you could share? Do you know a place where to source them?

torachan

1. I saw some fun Halloween decorations this morning on my bike ride. I took a long ride up into the ritzy part of town as I often do on the weekends, so the houses are huge!

( Pics! )

2. ( Weight loss )

3. I went to the other farmers market this morning and got some empanadas. I got the same cheese and corn ones as I got last time, but also got a roasted veggie one, which was delicious but I could see chunks of garlic as I was eating it and it immediately gave me stomach issues, so I won't be getting that again. I also got a guava cheese dessert empanada. :D

4. Gemma loves being on Carla's desk chair when it's tucked under the desk. So secret!

otw_news_feed

Posted by Myst

https://www.transformativeworks.org/october-2026-membership-drive-thanks-for-your-support/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=290123

The Organization for Transformative Works’s October Membership Drive is over and we are delighted to say that we are finishing with a total of US$314,539.76 raised. We are particularly pleased that 7,623 donors chose to either take up or renew OTW membership with their donation, exceeding our goal of 5,000 members.

These donations came from 9,131 people in 86 countries: thank you to every single one of them, as well as to all of you who posted and shared the news about the drive! The OTW would not exist without its users all around the world, and your continued support for us is our absolute pride and joy! We are so glad to know that our ongoing mission to support, protect, and provide access to the history of fanworks and fan culture continues to resonate with the people that matter most of all: the fans themselves.

If you were intending to donate or join and haven’t yet done so, don’t worry! The OTW accepts donations all year and you can always choose to become a member with a donation of US$10 or more. Memberships run for one calendar year from the date of your donation, so if you donate now you’ll be able to vote in the 2027 OTW Board elections, which will take place in August of next year. And our exclusive thank-you gifts are available whenever you donate!

https://www.transformativeworks.org/october-2026-membership-drive-thanks-for-your-support/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=290123

watersword

tl;dr mostly very good, some really tough moments

( cut for length and images )

Happy birthday to me.

cereta posting in

agonyaunt

I just received notice that Ask a Manager has filed a copyright claim against our community over several columns. The individual posters should be notified as well.

At the request of Dreamwidth administration, I'm creating a community rule regarding posts about Ask a Manager posts:

Posts that discuss Ask a Manager columns may contain only a brief excerpt and a link back to the original column.

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torachan

Recently Finished
Blanche Cleans Up & Blanche Passes Go
The final two Blanche White books. I really loved this series and am sad there aren't any more.

Wish You Weren't Here
First in a series about a family of ghostbusters. The tone reminds me a lot of the Grave Expectation series or like John Allison stuff and I enjoyed it a lot. Definitely looking forward to reading more.

The Blackout Murders
First in a series of murder mysteries set in a small village in WWII England. I liked this and am looking forward to more.

The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government
Title is self-explanatory. All my history classes in school pretty much ended right after WWII so we never covered the Red Scare, and even if we had, the textbooks would almost certainly have left this aspect out, since I went to a Christian school. I was aware of the Lavender Scare from fiction set around that time, but all the specifics were new to me, especially in terms of how explicit the government purge was. Very interesting.

John Grebble Is Gone
Short story about a guy who wakes up one morning to find he's been declared dead and his bank accounts are closed and he's locked out of work and no one will do anything about it because he's assumed to be trying to impersonate a dead guy. It was interesting in that it explores how automated integrated systems could potentially be taken advantage of by bad actors, but the writing and characterization could use work.

Breadcrumbs: Coming of Age in Post-Soviet Poland
Interesting graphic novel about the author's life in post-Soviet Poland. I loved the artwork.

This Beautiful Ridiculous City
Graphic novel theoretically about the author's move from India to New York, as city she's idolized since she was a child. The actual content of the book is all over the place, and there's not really a coherent narrative. The art is nice, but the text placement can be difficult to follow. It was just okay.

Bad Kid
Graphic novel about the author's multiple stints at residential programs for "troubled teens" growing up. I liked this.

princessofgeeks

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laurenthemself

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Greetings and thank you for writing for me. You can get a taste for me as a fannish being on my AO3 works list and Tumblr.

DNWs: Rape and dub-con, incest, scat, watersports, body horror, anything triggering for trypophobia or thalassophobia, queerphobia of any stripe, modern AUs, hurt no comfort. No whump for Yuletide, please.

General Likes: Found families, soulmates/soulmate marks, fake dating, trapped together, hurt/comfort, slow build relationships. Bondage, cuddling, kissing, first times, collaring and ownership, gender non-conformity. Romantic comedies. I adore apocafic to an unnatural extent, even in the current state of the world (prefer no COVID-19 fic though; I like my apocalypses to be fictional). Queer stuff! All the queer stuff! I can't overemphasise how awesome queer stuff is!

Anything rated G right through to to E is fine by me. I don't care what POV you write, what tense you write, if it's a straight narrative, epistolatory, poetry, or whatever else.

( Fandom specific prompts and thoughts. )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Eric: What might one say (or not say) to our 28-year-old son (and brother) who is in a relationship with a 27-year-old woman about whom we (his siblings and parents) see all kinds of "red flags" with her?

After almost every interaction with her, we come away with a heavy heart. They live together, but their relationship remains undefined. She is extremely ambitious and career driven. Any talk of marriage is off limits because that would imply she wants to "settle down and have babies," which is the last thing she wants to do. This is because she wants to go back to school, earn a Ph.D, and eventually become a college professor. Which is fine and admirable, of course, but her self-centeredness and self-serving habits always override our son's plans or desires.

He plans to just "hang in there" with her in the hopes that someday she'll be ready to commit to marriage. Our son is handsome, funny, intelligent and hardworking, but he doesn't seem to realize his own self-worth. We feel like he could do so much better in a life partner. I believe if we tell him we see red flags with her, he will say to us, "Oh, you don't know her the way I know her; she's a wonderful person."

But I've lived long enough to know she would be trouble for him; it's obvious to us. Do we speak up, or just let him live his life as he has currently chosen (with a strong hunch that this will not end well for him)?

– Flagging Family

( Read more... )

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Annie: This might seem a little weird for a 78-year-old man, but this really bothers me. When I was in elementary and high school, I wasn't liked by many of my fellow students. I was shy, a bit awkward and the target of bullying. I never fit in, and I thought high school would never end. Things were better in college. I graduated and went on to stand out in my profession, receiving honors and positive attention from my peers. It was the opposite of my high school experience.

I've only attended one high school class reunion, and that evening was the longest three hours of my life. I was again left out of conversations, and some memories centered around times I was bullied. Needless to say, I never went back. Now a group of my old high school classmates get together informally from time to time for breakfast, lunch, etc. I keep getting invited via email, but I haven't been able to bring myself to go.

In retirement, I've become friends with an old classmate who I never interacted with in high school. We were in different circles, but he was always friendly to me. He personally invited me to one of these gatherings. I gave in after many requests. The minute I entered the room and saw those faces, I was overwhelmed by the past. I made it through the event even though one classmate told a story about a bullying incident where I was the victim. Everyone laughed. I cried inside. The classmate who pushed me to go apologized after the gathering and said he had no idea that would happen. I'll never go back, but that awful experience is in my head every day.

I've talked with my pastor, which was helpful, but I'm still unhappy. I've never thought of hurting myself, but I've become somewhat of a recluse, afraid to leave my home or go anywhere I might run into an old classmate. My years are numbered, and I want them to be happy, but they're anything but. My wife is very supportive and understands my plight. She encourages me but doesn't push.

How can I get over this? I've thought of moving to another city where I won't run into anyone from high school, but that would mean taking my wife from her friends and family. -- Still Hurting

( Read more... )

torachan

1. It was hot today but not as hot as yesterday, and more importantly, it was overcast all day, which really helped the heat to not feel as bad. It's also dry and windy, though that has its own issues such as aggravating allergies (and fires, but thankfully that hasn't been an issue near us this year).

2. We had a nice morning at Disneyland, followed by lunch at Knott's Berry Farm.

3. Ollie is such a cutie.

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Cimorene

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