Reading

Current Mood: curious
Current Music: I'm a Believer - the Monkees

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my flist knows everything

When I needed sunshine I got rain

So it turns out that all that rain and wind last night was due to a nor'easter. In late May. What the actual fuck. But climate change is a hoax.

Anyway, hit me with your favorite brownie recipes! I myself prefer them fudgy instead of cakey, but I am open to variations.

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Current Mood: sleepy

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d&d: aurendor

Aurendor D&D: Summary for 5/21 Game

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

And that's where we left off.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Mets vs Red Sox on tv

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there's a good chance he hit it further

Today was chilly and rainy - it was hard to get out of bed, were I was so cozy and warm. Part of me was like, is it May 21st or March 21st? I like it being cooler at night, but I'm so tired of all the rain.

I was supposed to go into the office yesterday, but my meeting got moved to tomorrow on Zoom, so I didn't have to go in. Luckily, my boss understands that I'm much more productive at home, and doesn't demand my presence more than once a month or so (if that). It's just been stupidly busy with the search committee stuff, though she and I are getting ourselves through it by clinging to the idea that once the search firm is on board, there will be significantly less of that work on our plates. *fingers crossed*

Meanwhile, I read another book:

What I've just finished: Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano, the second book in the series. I enjoyed it, but I couldn't think too hard about any of it - just keep it light and breezy - because otherwise it's very hard to believe some of the things the characters choose to do.

What I'm reading now/next: Probably the next book in the series, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun, since I don't want to lose momentum (okay, I did lose momentum between books 1 and 2 - I had 2 open in a tab for weeks before I actually settled into reading it; sometimes all I want is Batfamily, which is still my main interest in fic-reading these days, for whatever reason).

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Current Mood: hopeful

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This Week's Plans

It's a short week at work, so I'm hoping to make the most of it and properly relax at least some this coming long weekend. Of course, I have to make it through the week first.

( Rambling about my plans for the week under the cut. )

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Some more passages from William Morris's The Roots of the Mountains

‘For the day is waxing old, and here meseemeth in this dim hall there are words crossing in the air about us—words spoken in days long ago, and tales of old time, that keep egging me on to do my will and die, because that is all that the world hath for a valiant man; and to such words I would not hearken, for in this hour I have no will to die, nor can I think of death.’

‘Now, lads, the night weareth and the guest is weary: therefore whoso of you hath in him any minstrelsy, now let him make it, for later on it shall be over-late.’

‘Now were I fain to have a true tale out of him, but it is little likely that anything shall come of my much questioning; and it is ill forcing a young man to tell lies.’

He laughed and said: ‘Thou didst not doubt but that if we met, thou mightest do with me as thou wouldest?’

‘So it is,’ she said, ‘that I doubted it little.’

[T]he stony neck sank into another desolate miry heath still falling toward the east, but whose further side was walled by a rampart of crags cleft at their tops into marvellous-shapes, coal-black, ungrassed and unmossed. Thitherward the hound led straight, and Gold-mane followed wondering: as he drew near them he saw that they were not very high, the tallest peak scant fifty feet from the face of the heath.

They made their way through the scattered rocks at the foot of these crags, till, just where the rock-wall seemed the closest, the way through the stones turned into a path going through it skew-wise; and it was now so clear a path that belike it had been bettered by men’s hands. Down thereby Face-of-god followed the hound, deeming that he was come to the gates of the Shadowy Vale, and the path went down steeply and swiftly.

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using up yarn

Lilac pink book club cardigan

Here's the sweater I knitted so hard that I sproinged my shoulder blade! It's been finished for a couple of weeks, but I finally got Wax to take some pictures of it on me in natural light.

It's good that I hurried when knitting, actually (even if it isn't good that my shoulder is wonky), because I think it's going to be too warm to wear it out more until next fall. I got a few weeks of wear out of it when it was new this way.

This sweater was knitted using the popular Finnish knitwear designer Sari Nordlund's Bookclub cardigan pattern in Filcolana Peruvian aran-weight wool in color 227 ("old rose", but it's more a bright pastel lilac, I'd say). (I made a number of modifications and notes which can be seen on my project page.)

I love this sweater. It has an unusual shape and drape caused by the unusual construction with the Scandinavian-style shoulder, where the shoulder seams are moved onto the back and the fronts curve over the shoulders to meet them, and I love the shape of the front V-neck.

It isn't perfect because the pockets aren't deep enough to carry my phone in - which I knew was happening when I knitted it, but I didn't want to lengthen the bottom hem to make the phone fit or go back and move the pocket openings higher up. Also the sleeves are slightly too long. You never know for sure how much they will grow with blocking, and having them slightly too short is worse.

Current Mood: accomplished

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d&d: titansfall

Titansfall D&D: Summary for 5/18 Game

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

And that's where we left off.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Mets-Yankees game with the sound off because ESPN is the worst

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a variety of other things

I enjoyed this week's Leverage. ( spoilers )

I also watched the first two episodes of Murderbot. It was cute. I like Mensah a lot. I only read the first novella and thought it was fine but not at all memorable, so I have no real dog in this hunt. ( spoiler )

Ugh, I just found out the Mets are on ESPN next Sunday night too. ESPN is the worst broadcast.

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brain: adhd,
health

Unscheduled Saturday of drugged sleep, you say?

Well, guys, last fall when I was having a nervous breakdown my doctor was having some trouble finding a good medication to prescribe to help me sleep, and she landed on mirtazapine, which is actually an antidepressant, but has a strong history of off-label use as a sleep aid.

You can take half a pill or a quarter of a pill, something like that, at bedtime, my doctor said, and hopefully this will help you sleep. And this medication has a weird curve where it acts differently at high doses and if you want you can take a full tablet in the morning as a mood lifter. (This is all paraphrased.)

I tried a half-tablet of mirtazapine for insomnia last fall at one point, and found it made it very hard to wake up the next day. I quickly switched to quarter tablets and even eighth tablets, on a tip from the pharmacist ("Many people find an eighth works even better than a quarter"). I never took this every night, and gradually got out of the habit because I have mostly not been having much insomnia and my greater concern is how hard it is to wake up in the morning.

So until yesterday I actually never had taken a whole tablet, but I started thinking maybe I should try it recently. I have been feeling some of that weird ADHD-understimulation where it's like your brain itches, but all the things I tried to read or look at or draw didn't help and it still felt kind of... boring. I don't really like the term 'boredom' in this explanation for that reason, but all the information I can find about ADHD understimulation emphasizes it and most of it is about taking things you like to do along when you have to sit through boring lectures etc which is not what's going on for me at all (and which I have already been doing my whole life). Reading is my silver-bullet distraction that always works. Maybe the problem is that understimulation isn't really what's going on.

But anyway! Yesterday I decided to give it a try. So I took one tablet with my meds after breakfast and then I just. Got very sleepy inside like half an hour and slept for... five hours, and then woke up from hunger and only managed to stay up long enough to eat a banana and two pieces of toast before falling back asleep for another five hours. I ate the dinner Wax made and managed to sit there half awake for a couple of hours before going to bed and sleeping another twelve hours.

It's like the day is just gone!

Current Mood: contemplative

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Reading — Fine: A Comic About Gender by Rhea Ewing

In 2005, artist Rhea Ewing had a lot of questions about their own gender identity. Some of those questions were so big and so formless that they didn't even know how to ask them.

They started a kind of study, gathering people who were willing to talk to Ewing about their gender identities. Because Ewing thought in visuals, they turned it into a comic. It was originally meant to be maybe 30 pages, a little project for their final university project. Ewing soon realized that this work was too complex and multifaceted to be that simple booklet, and in fact, they didn't finish the comic until the early 2020s.

The book is arranged by topics, starting with Femininity and Masculinity and then working through more of the interviewees' experiences within themselves and then out in the world of other people, through Hormones, Healthcare, Queer Community, and much more. Under each topic are relevant snippets of the actual interviews, drawn as lively, expressive comics, and the words of the interviewees are thought-provoking and sometimes heart-rending.

Some reviewers I've read are miffed with Ewing, because the artist doesn't come up with a specific plan or specific answers to the issue of gender in today's society (and yes, there is acknowledgement and discussion of variations in culture within that society). But in fact, there are conclusions, expressed on the last couple of pages before the acknowledgments. What there isn't is a step-by-step recipe for "solving" the question of gender. And if you really read that far, you should appreciate why.

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attempting to read roundup & meta rec

I accidentally deleted the last William Morris book in my to-reread list from my phone and never got around to sending it back.

I started Walter Scott's The Talisman, because it's one of his few novels set in the middle ages, but there's some racism that's hard to swallow. There is a major Kurdish character, a knight under Saladin, who is... friends? With our Norman Scottish protagonist. The portrayal is not unsympathetic. I think Scott is doing his best to be even-handed, but like Catholicism, Islam just seems factually wrong and evil etc etc to him, and its adherents who are good guys are unfortunately misled. It's... hard to read. In retrospect, I'm surprised by how much he didn't dislike Judaism, in comparison.

Also started The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany. I read this as a teenager but remembered nothing. The narrative voice is quaint and charming. It's not really gripping me though.

No progress in Le Morte d'Arthur (Malory) or The Idylls of the King (Tennyson). The latter is more readable, comparatively, but I just don't really like reading verse. Also I did make some progress in The Faerie Queene (Spenser), and one verse narrative at a time is plenty.

Speaking of verse narratives, I still haven't made any more progress in the Wilson translation of Seneca's plays. (But the translations aren't in verse!) I might just have to skip Oedipus. I hate him for some reason.

I guess now I should actually reread all of Murderbot again, since I can't remember all the details and the show is starting to air. That should be comparatively quick though! I have the last Katherine Addison waiting and haven't gotten around to picking it up.

With all these things that I'm feeling decidedly unenthused about, I instead read the whole part of Jordanes' ancient history of the Goths that deals with wars with Asian invaders and then the entirety of Hervor's/Heidrek's saga, including the ancient poem called The Battle of the Goths and the Huns. (This is the only surviving medieval saga that deals with Gothic tribes in mainland Europe, and Jordanes' is the only other ancient source with relevance to Morris's The Roots of the Mountains.) I had made all the posts about that book which I had in mind when reading it, but yesterday I found a link on Tumblr to these two great essays about the context, history, and implications of the racism of Tolkien orcs/goblins by James Mendez Hodes (he doesn't mention Morris/ROTM or the specific borrowing from Jordanes alleged in Seaman's introduction to ROTM, but these links in the chain are immaterial to the argument): Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part I: A Species Built for Racial Terror. content warnings: racism, colonialism/imperialism, cultural conflation, sexism, sexual violence, anger & Orcs, Britons, and the Martial Race Myth, Part II: They're Not Human. These essays totally opened my eyes to a missing link in my understanding of the background of the racist portrayal of the Dusky Men - one I wouldn't have missed if I'd reread Said's Orientalism, which I probably should've. The gender aspect of the ROTM Huns is riffing on the extreme cultural openness and intermarriage habits of the Mongols, whose invasions were much later - 13th century, long after the christianization and settlement of the germanic tribes and the fall of the Roman empire. (More on the Mongols' real culture and the stereotypes in western culture surrounding them in his posts!) So that gives me something else to research. Maybe I actually will eventually form a coherent theory of what is going on with all the gender roles in this book!

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Quotes from Walter Scott's The Abbot

"And, by my faith, he is a man of steel, as true and as pure, but as hard and as pitiless. You remember the Cock of Capperlaw, whom he hanged over his gate for a mere mistake—a poor yoke of oxen taken in Scotland, when he thought he was taking them in English land? I loved the Cock of Capperlaw; the Kerrs had not an honester man in their clan, and they have had men that might have been a pattern to the Border—men that would not have lifted under twenty cows at once, and would have held themselves dishonoured if they had taken a drift of sheep, or the like, but always managed their raids in full credit and honour."

What a fascinating look at 16th century Scottish border life. It's totally honorable to steal a large herd of cows from an English target, but the fewer you steal (presumably because of the relative poverty of their owner) the more morally questionable, so the most honorable lads are raiding large quantities of livestock from wealthy English landowners. Meanwhile, stealing any amount of livestock from another Scottish person is punishable by death.

Their stately offices—their pleasant gardens—the magnificent cloisters constructed for their recreation, were all dilapidated and ruinous; and some of the building materials had apparently been put into requisition by persons in the village and in the vicinity, who, formerly vassals of the Monastery, had not hesitated to appropriate to themselves a part of the spoils. Roland saw fragments of Gothic pillars richly carved, occupying the place of door-posts to the meanest huts; and here and there a mutilated statue, inverted or laid on its side, made the door-post, or threshold, of a wretched cow-house.

Mostly I'm just sad we don't have documentary photo evidence of this practice.

"My master has pushed off in the boat which they call the little Herod, (more shame to them for giving the name of a Christian to wood and iron,)[...]"

Old Keltie, the landlord, who had bestowed his name on a bridge in the neighbourhood of his quondam dwelling, received the carrier with his usual festive cordiality, and adjourned with him into the house, under pretence of important business, which, I believe, consisted in their emptying together a mutchkin stoup of usquebaugh.

Love to see whiskey in Gaelic.

“Peace, ye brawling hound!” said the wounded steward; “are dagger-stabs and dying men such rarities in Scotland, that you should cry as if the house were falling?”

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: Plush - Stone Temple Pilots

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and i feel that so much depends on the weather

I realize I owe replies to comments and I will get to that. Work has just been eating my brain lately and not leaving much leftover.

In the meantime, I bring you two cool links:

- the Superman trailer which looks so good (I also ordered this adorable Superman dress for Baby Miss L); and

- this interview with John DeMarisco, who directs Mets games for SNY (and a cool behind the scenes video here).

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Entry tags:

fandom stuff,
links

(no subject)

The History of BL (Boys’ Love)

“Boys love” as an expression first came into existence in the 90s, and was used to describe commercial manga and light novels with a focus on male relationships, but gradually also incorporated non-commercial works, such as fanzines and doujinshi.

Posting mostly for my own reference because I lost the original article that teen!Bear read when she looked for the difference between "yaoi" and "BL."

Current Mood: sleepy

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d&d: aurendor

Aurendor D&D: Summary for 5/14 Game

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

And that's where we left off.

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art: my art,
cats

Kitty acquaintanceship progress

As long-time readers are aware, Wax and I have been cat divorced for what feels like forever* (in this case, since we brought Sipuli home last September), in a house ( divided. )

Tristana's journey: Tristana would initially not come near the gate at all; then she would gradually creep closer but run away and hide at any sign of movement. ( It was agonizingly gradual, and it's been over six months, but as of about a week and a half ago, she is not afraid at all. )

Sipuli's journey: So Tristana has made a lot of progress, and will stay sitting right next to the gate now even when Sipuli gets excited and rattles it or bounces off it a bit. But now the problem is Sipuli. After her first reaction of getting over-excited - usually like, one bounce - she typically has a quick spurt of intense regret and self-doubt, and frequently retreats, sometimes all the way into the other room. It seems that she has learned that her over-excitedness has something bad associated with it, but she doesn't understand what about it is wrong, so she will leave the gate while Tristana is still sitting right there peering through at her like "Where are you going?"

They have sat quite close on opposite sides of the gate looking at each other, neither one freaking out, I'd say about three times in the last week and a half, though. They still haven't sniffed and greeted each other, but I think it is probably not far away now. And then when they do they can be introduced on leashes in the same space!!!!!!!

This was last weekend, the second time they did it. And these are sketches I did after

waxjism said "They're so Kiki and Boba!"

* But before that since I think 2022 because of Anubis, with a couple of weeks of breaks here and there.

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Mets post game show

Entry tags:

sinking away from him

So I did watch the last couple of episodes of Elsbeth and enjoyed them a lot. ( spoilers )

Mets have won 2 ugly games from the Pirates. Let's hope they take the third one tomorrow, too. And the Knicks! Wow!

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recipes

My brilliant dessert chef wife* heroically recreates French restaurant molten chocolate cake for me

*My wife is not really a dessert chef, it's just her hobby. She likes to watch French dessert chefs on YouTube.

For years one of our most frequently patronized restaurants was a Finnish chain of French provincial cuisine called Fransmanni and we got this cake every time we ate there. It's a miniature chocolate cake, approximately ramekin-sized, that would come upside down on the plate with a little scoop of vanilla icecream, and while the outside was cakey the inside was still liquid.

I was lying around yesterday, suffering through period cramps after taking my painkillers, and lamenting that I didn't buy any more peanut m&m's so I didn't have emergency chocolate, and saying for the millionth time that I wished I could have the miniature chocolate cake from Fransmanni, and it might not even be too hard to make, but I didn't even know what it was called... only then

waxjism said she thought it was called gateau fondant.

Actually it turns out that it might not be called that because apparently people use this term for miniature cakes that are not liquid in the center? But people still call it that enough to bring the information up with those search terms. The Wikipedia entry about it in English is called "Molten chocolate cake" and gives the same origin stories as the French recipe blog we used, and here's what she said about it:

[C]hocolate fondant (or should I say molten cake? lava cake?) is really something the French bake very often at home and that became a great classic of French restaurants, form small bistrots to more fancy restaurants. It’s super quick and easy, only 5 ingredients.

Molten Chocolate Fondant - Zest of France

I got out the ingredients in a spurt of enthusiasm, but then

waxjism jumped up and took over with her dessert chef skills! We only realized after the batter was done that it was a lot of batter and we don't have ramekins. Muffin tray was the only option, and there was some concern that it might not all fit in one mufffin tray, but it did: it made eleven muffin-size cakes out of a tray of twelve.

Then the muffin tray went in the fridge and we confronted the fact that we have only ever eaten one of these cakes at a time before (albeit slightly larger ones than the ones produced by the muffin tray), and that they are meant to be eaten straight out of the oven. They are so tiny that they bake in about ten minutes though, so

waxjism came up with sliding the filled muffin cups on little bits of cardboard into small ziploc bags and freezing them. So we ate two each yesterday and baked two more today.

I had to take pictures even though they look almost comically unprepossessing. We were not inclined to break out fresh berries or whipped cream to plate it with though, so it is what it is. Trust me, it's incredible! Even though they are a little less cooked than the ideal amount here: the solid shell is a bit thinner than it was yesterday (they weren't room temperature yet when we put them in the oven.)

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(no subject)

Still slowly making my way through House via using it as background noise while cross stitching.

In one episode, a young supermodel mentions that the fashion designer she was walking for promised her that she would be the bride during the next show. Which confused me because? She's gonna get married on the runway?

I then ended up in a search spiral and ended up here:

An Explanation About The Random “Bride” During Couture Shows

“It's about money, mainly, but the whole cliché of ending a fashion show with a bride is not unlike the ridiculous lie of Hollywood romantic comedies that predictably end with a wedding,” says fashion critic and author of Fear and Clothing, Cintra Wilson.

Current Mood: accomplished

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d&d: titansfall

Titansfall D&D: Summary for 5/11 Game

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

And that's where we left off.