rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] books
I really hate to give up on a book, but sometimes, there are too many other tempting things on the horizon to keep ploughing through an active read in the hopes it gets better. Today I put aside Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling. While I would have liked to have gone all the way to the end before making a judgement, there just over 9 hours still to go on the audiobook and the book has simply not given me enough to power through that.
 
At nearly 9 hours in (about halfway) my overall feeling towards this book is indifference. Towards the plot, towards the characters, towards the setting. It's very generic fantasy and just doesn't give much to bite onto outside of that. The first half of the plot has some fun adventure elements, but when the mentor-figure, Seregil, becomes incapacitated partway through, the youthful protagonist Alec is simply not enough to carry the story. The second half of the story is more political intrigue, and I can't help but compare it to The Traitor Baru Cormorant which I'm also currently reading, and that comparison does Luck in the Shadows no favors. 

Seregil and Alec's escapades are fun, and it's interesting to see the creative ways they go about their tasks, but for me it's not enough to make up for the lackluster plot and detailed but unremarkable worldbuilding.
 
There's a disappointing dearth of women in the story, although one of the fantasy kingdoms in which the second half of the story takes place has been ruled by a succession of queens for centuries. There is some casual queerness in the story which I liked, but when I looked for more reviews on this to help me decide if it was worth pressing on, I learned (SPOILER) that Alec and Seregil become a couple later on. Given that Alec is barely sixteen at the start of this book, and Seregil is a middle-aged man, I'm just not here for it.
 
This is the first book of a series (the Nightrunner series), but my general feeling on series is that it's a cop-out to rely on later books to make up for weaknesses in earlier books. Particularly here, where each book gets longer, the author is asking for me to take a lot on trust that this story will get better with time.
 
I really wanted to like this book, as I really want to like all fantasy novels, but it's just not worth the amount of time investment needed. Also, in general, not looking for stories about adults falling in love with teenagers. Disappointing, but there are other things to move on to.

RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Jun. 4th, 2025 04:39 pm
silversea: Cat reading a red book (Reading Cat)
[personal profile] silversea posting in [community profile] booknook
Happy June!

What are you reading?

myth, matches & me: a hello post

Jun. 4th, 2025 08:04 pm
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[personal profile] booksbardsandbaselines posting in [community profile] addme

Name: Danielle

Age: 30s

I mostly post about: life, books I'm reading (or re-reading!), music I'm loving, tennis matches I'm yelling at the TV about, and all the soft little joys in between.

My hobbies are: reading, writing, journalling, cooking, gardening, watching tennis, listening to music, doing crosswords, talking about Greek myths, collecting daffodils (not literally, just in spirit), and wandering around museums and libraries like a nerd in her natural habitat.

My fandoms are: Percy Jackson, Greek mythology in general, Taylor Swift, various tennis players (Aryna Sabalenka, Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner, Jasmine Paolini, Qinwen Zheng).

I'm looking to meet people who: are curious, kind, thoughtful, and enjoy rambling about things they love. Fellow readers, writers, myth geeks, ADHD brains, and warm-hearted nerds especially welcome!

My posting schedule tends to be: softly chaotic, but aiming for 3–4 posts a week—somewhere between “routine” and “inspired flurry.”

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: bigotry of any kind, cruelty, or just generally being mean-spirited. I like my internet spaces kind and cozy.

Before adding me, you should know: I'm a chatterbox when I'm excited, and I’ll probably mention Greek gods, tennis scores, and obscure historical tidbits in the same breath. I write with a lot of heart, and I love connecting with thoughtful people. đź’›

Sinners

Jun. 4th, 2025 09:13 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I didn't think I was going to get to see Sinners before it left theaters, but D has found like one showing an evening this week so he and I went today! Sadly V wasn't feeling up to coming along, but otherwise it was great.

I enjoyed the hell out of the movie, if not as much as I would have at like 16 when I was obsessed with that music.

All the performances were so good, and I loved the soundtrack and it was just a joy to watch.

I told V that if they were up to it I'd happily go see it again with them tomorrow. I so badly want to Check on some things. (Also I saw it with no audio description so I'm certain I missed a ton of what's actually on the screen.)

The Random Factor

Jun. 4th, 2025 12:20 pm
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera


The smoke from the fires in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and northwestern Ontario has hit upstate New York.

The rising full moon last night was blood red.

And the sky this morning looks like a diffractionless opal, a whitish translucent wash with the barest undercoat of blue through which the sun just glowers. I'd planned on taking it easy today anyway, because I kinda knocked myself out weeding the New Paltz plot yesterday.

Before:



After:



Doesn't look like I did a lot, does it? But it was four full wheelbarrows of brambles and other assorted weeds.

Harder work than I thought it would be, & I was kinda achey from all that squatting & pulling. So I figured I'd go easy on myself today. Resume weeding tomorrow, but get there while it's still cool out.

And that turns out to be a good decision because today I'm feeling a kind of generalized air hunger, some shortness of breath with exertion. Though whether that's from the smoky air or generalized anxiety I can't quite tell.

###

Said anxiety is due to Icky being even more of a dick than usual.

Last fall, after I closed down my garden in Hyde Park, I brought all my gardening stuff back here & stashed it in the shed because I thought I'd be gardening here this summer.

Then, six weeks or so ago, Icky announced that he didn't want to garden with me. Was it my breath? My ineffective underarm deodorant? My generally displeasing personality? No! It was that Icky does not like to work or play with others.

Fortunately, the good folk at the Hyde Park garden had just written me a love note: We miss you!

So, I decided to go back & garden there again. (And, of course, the New Paltz Community Garden just found some open spots, so now I'm juggling two gardens!) And I transported all my gardening stuff back to Hyde Park.

###

Then yesterday, Icky went on a tear because he decided all the gardening stuff in the shed belonged to him.

All day long, he fusillaged me with text: Those tomato cages are mine. I’ve had them since before I moved here. I put them all back there after the season

I texted back, As I said, I brought the 10 cages I used in my garden last year to your shed in October last year because I thought I was going to be gardening here this year. After you told me you’d prefer to garden alone, I took those same 10 cages—they were stacked on the left side of the shed—back to Hyde Park. That’s all I know, Iggy.

He texted: Where are my cages then? I put all the cages I used all of last summer in that shed. There are no cages now. I never saw yours in there.

###

This is the kind of petty hammering he does relentlessly & he is so fucking relentless that he usually gets his own way—because who in their right mind wants to spend hours texting about fucking tomato cages?

Finally, he called.

"Look," I said. "We're at an impasse. And I'm at a disadvantage in all my transactions with you since you own the house, so you have the power. Are you interested in some kind of compromise or should we just keep up the text chain till I move out?"

This was said with more bravado than I actually have, of course.

Moving out would be difficult at this point.

I'm an elderly cat lady and the rental situation hereabouts is not exactly clamoring for elderly cat ladies.

On the other hand, I'm an excellent tenant, and Icky doesn't want the house sitting empty for the 20 days of each month he's not on the premises.

And I suppose it's possible that I did grab some of Icky's tomato cages without thinking about it—though I'm certainly not going to admit that to him.

The compromise?

I'll bring back any extra tomato cages and check the slag heap at the Hyde Park garden where old tomato cages go to die. Bring him those.

###

The situation is highly anxiety-provoking because it reminds me how little control I have over my life.

Of course, because of the way I was brought up, it never occurred to me that one could control one's life simply by making wise choices. I was a waif bufffeted about by forces I couldn't control! And then as an adult, I kind of mythologized that choicelessness! Turned it into a philosophy. Became fatalistic.

I don't know what the answer is.

I do know many people who have organized their lives around making wise choices, and for many of those people life has worked out well, but for just as many, life hasn't.

The random factor is very, very powerful.

Sleep band

Jun. 3rd, 2025 10:56 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

As someone who, 99% of the time, has to listen to something (usually a familiar audiobook or podcast) to fall asleep, I am finally trying one of these Bluetooth sleep headband things that always get advertised to me.

My needs (or expectations) are not great here. Back in the days of rigid Walkman headphones with scratchy foam over the earphones I would fall asleep lying on my side with them digging in to my head.

But even so, this has been a success the last few nights. If a little warm for my hot head.

It's funny: it's clearly meant to be an eye mask too, but I can't stand not being able to see at least a little light when I open my eyes, so I actively dislike this. I'll wear it at an awkward angle, I don't mind! I hate the dark so much.

Unexpected benefit of this contraption is I can continue my habit of listening to a podcast (to get my hit of extrovert energy) while I'm getting dressed in the morning, without disturbing my sleeping boyfriend still in bed. (I know this would be true of any Bluetooth headset but I'm not used to them, plus the fabric fits the soft and cozy gentle start to the day that I'm always aiming for.)

My bedroom is even close enough to the bathroom that I can leave my phone next to my bed, go brush my teeth, and no interruption in me hearing strangers chat about baseball or whatever.

mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera
G4 geomagnetic sun storm in effect last night. Very, very, very dimly, my naked eyes espied the Aurora Borealis:



Like I said, I spent five hours yesterday getting my computer to do what it was doing perfectly well at the beginning of the day before I started fucking around with it, so I was in a pettish mood all day.

That mood was exasperated by the fact that I didn't do a good job saving for taxes last year and now am paying off the not-huge-but-still-significant amount I put on a credit card. Disposable income is down this month, in other words. I must ration my little treats!



Antonio Delgado is taking on Kathy Hochul in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Good!

He's a strong progressive candidate who believes in universal child care, expanded rental assistance, stronger investment in community health centers, higher minimum wage, all well and good things in themselves, but he also has the potential to beat Elise Stefanik, the rumored Republican candidate, who is creepy, creepy, creepy in every imaginable way. Delgado could carry New York City; I don't think Hochul could.

Delgado has done his prep work.

I don't think there's a county fair, volunteer fire department celebration, or Lion's Club picnic throughout the entire state—and New York State has some real backwaters—that Delgado hasn't shown up at over the past five years. The picture above of Delgado & io truly was taken at the 2018 Hyde Park Fourth of July parade.

###

Also, I watched the Pee-wee Herman documentary on HBO. It is very sad. It made me cry.

I am more of a fan of Paul Reubens as a conceptual artist than I am of his conceptual art. I prefer my kitsch with a lot of white space—which his didn't have. Pee-wee's Playhouse is a bit too frenetic for me.

But I do think Pee-wee's Playhouse captures two tendencies of childhood extremely well: (1) children's tendency to take metaphors & other figurative constructions very literally, and (2) children's tendency to anthropomorphize. (I well remember Mr. Light whom I got to talk to in the bathroom as a three-year-old whenever I had to have my hair washed.)

Pee-wee Herman is childlike, but he is not childish.

Big distinction.

Catburglar of the Constellations

Jun. 2nd, 2025 10:55 pm
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
Catburglar of the Constellations by John C. Wright

Starquest book 3. Spoilers for the earlier books ahead.

Read more... )

(no subject)

Jun. 2nd, 2025 09:05 pm
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[personal profile] ashleygamer6 posting in [community profile] addme
Name: Ashley (she/her - transfemme)

Age: 36



I mostly post about: So I'm 2 years into my transition as a female, I'm pretty much woman except I can't land a job so have no friends, dates, nothing. I'm EXTREMELY stressed. I try to game to escape, but my mom purposely stresses me out while I do that, I'm in hell. I go outside only when I have to now, 'cause people treat me like shit. So my posts are mostly musings and psychological bs. You can see the shit I put up with on the first on my first page.



My hobbies are: Listening to y2k music, sometimes 90s music, playing video games, indie/y2k/multiplayer/remakes&sequals, and working out.



My fandoms are: Final Fantasy. I've played them all, though I haven't beaten every one. Will be getting more into Zelda when I get a Switch 2. The Last of Us (TV) and I've played the games. Gay shit in general.



I'm looking to meet people who: Nerds who don't get butthurt or threatened about me.



My posting schedule tends to be: Whenever the mood strikes.



When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Well, the exclusionary workaholic tools already aren't adding me, so I don't have to worry about anyone!



Before adding me, you should know: If you stop commenting after 2 weeks, as most journalers do, I will remove you so let's skip the unnecessary steps and just not add me if you're gonna do that, okay?

rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] books
Last night I finished The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernandez, book #9 from the "Women in Translation" rec list. This book was translated from Spanish by Natasha Wimmer.
 
The Twilight Zone is a nonfiction book, part memoir, part investigative journalism piece by Fernandez, first published in 2016. It concerns Fernandez's study of and memories of growing up under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. The author is haunted by the traumas of the regime, both those she experienced firsthand and those she heard about from others, and the book in some ways feels like an exercise in simply trying to reconcile those feelings.
 
Fernandez's book is of course very specific to the Chilean experience, and yet core parts of her incisive commentary about both the absurdity and the cruelty of autocracies rings true around the world. The exercises the regime goes through in its constant quest for self-preservation are both ridiculous and brutal, feelings Fernandez captures in her title. The surrealist sci-fi hit show of the 70s fits very well as a metaphor for the often-flailing yet eminently dangerous police state. 
 
Fernandez does an excellent job of using her prose to say things not neatly spelled out in words. I was reminded of reading The Things They Carried in high school, and how revelatory it seemed to me at the time how the author could use the style of prose to suggest a character's mental disarrangement without simply saying he was deranged. Fernandez's prose stood out to me in a similar way—how she uses the structure of her words to capture the feelings at play.
 
Equally compelling is the obviously copious amounts of research Fernandez put into her work. She portrays herself as a woman consumed by a quest to find answers about this regime, and it comes across in her work. Names, dates, places, timelines — Fernandez has clearly put in the leg work to piece together the final days of the highlighted victims of the regime as much as can be done. 
 
However, the book never comes across like a textbook. Fernandez ably weaves her research into a compelling narrative. Neither does she ever seek to blur the line between the facts and her imagination—she keeps a clean line between what she knows and what she wonders, or imagines. Nevertheless, the questions and suppositions that populate Fernandez's mind feel regrettably natural for anyone in the aggravating circumstances of a mendacious autocracy. She does an excellent job of showing how crazy-making it is to live under such a government, where you are constantly being lied to in direct contradiction of visible facts, and yet there seems to be nothing you can do but either accept the truth or taste the knuckles of the regime. 
 
I really enjoyed this read. It breezed by and I can absolutely see what a national treasure Fernandez is as a writer! I would love to see if more of her work has been translated into English; she has a wonderful voice.

Exercise victories

Jun. 2nd, 2025 10:24 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Can't tell if my biggest exercise achievement this evening is

1) the (new, temporary) instructor saying "that's the strongest plank ever!" about mine (plank is usually a weakness, all I normally hear is "Erik get your hips up!")
or
2) me absolutely booking it out of there the second our cooldown finished, knowing I only had a chance to make the bus if I hustled -- effectively addring ten minutes of cardio on top of the hour-long circuits session! -- and getting to the stop just as the bus did.

I was so wrecked by the time I got home though. Especially because the bus driver didn't let me off at the stop I wanted (I guess I stood up too late and despite getting to the front of the bus just after another person exited the bus and the doors were still open, he insisted on ignoring me!).

I was so tired that, when I went to eat the lovely dinner that my lovely boyfriend had made for us while I was out, I had to consciously think it's time to open my mouth, muscles! once my hand had brought the spoon full of chili and rice to my lips.

Accessibility

Jun. 2nd, 2025 03:25 pm
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera


Had a good time playing in the dirt at the garden yesterday. My strawberries are coming in:



I'm fairly sure Claude is the source of everything that's earthy and solid on this planet:



Neighbor Ed turned out to be in Providence, so my impromptu plan to ring his doorbell and shriek Hi-ii-iiii! was for all for naught.

Instead, I went tromping. Some dead Vanderbilt had a thing for Liriodendron tulipiferae, and I'm so glad they did! The tulip trees were all in bloom yesterday. Though I guess not being real flowers but specialized leaves, "bloom" is the wrong operative verb there:










And the peonies hadn't bloomed yet:



One assumes there must be peonies in Ulster County, but I have yet to see a single one, so I was very pleased to see these:



When I woke up this morning, my computer had come down with a display glitch that irritated the hell out of me, so I started banging systems settings randomly, and in doing so managed to fuck up my computer even more!

It took me five hours to track down & undo whatever random thing I did: It was something under "Accessibility." "Accessibility" is filled with all sorts of deeply weird functionalities.
In the future, I must remember to write down whatever small changes I make to the computer's operating system. My memory just isn't keyed in to retaining random shit like that, even though random shit like that turns out to be absolutely essential to the smooth, background functioning of said tool. I managed to right the most obvious problems, but the damn thing still isn't working well enough for the perfect spontaneous heart dump.

140 in 1400 List

Jun. 1st, 2025 10:48 am
zhelana: (Marvel - Dancing Groot)
[personal profile] zhelana
Finished This Month

Comply with PT exercises
Go out to photograph 12 times in 2025
Read 50 books 2025
Watch 200 educational videos 2025


Progress This Month

Progress )

Rain & Politics

Jun. 1st, 2025 08:15 am
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera
Except that it never did stop raining yesterday.

All day long, I registered the raindrops hitting the mud puddles in Icky's garden. The raindrops slowed down in the afternoon. But they did not stop.

Me being me, I castigated myself: If you weren't such a wimp, you'd go out tromping in this!!! What's a little water???

But, no. I may not have much sense, but I do have enough sense to come in out of the rain.

This morning, the sun is herding puffy, pastel clouds across a blue sky, though it is extremely soggy. Good day for gardening.

###

I was diligent yesterday. Got a lot of Remuneration done and mostly staved off the feelings of worthlessness and impending doom that accompany every day without full-spectrum sunlight for me.

My knee is almost back to normal. So, since I am the pivot around which the Universe revolves, it's very clear to me that the Universe made it rain to enforce another of rest & recuperation for my knee.

###

The world at large continues to horrify. Ukraine. Gaza. All those people dying. Wars—with the possible exceptions of World War II & the Vietnamese annihilation of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 — are beyond senseless. Fifty years after every war that's ever been fought, enemies are allies again, boundaries have been renegotiated by treaties, trade is brisk. So what exactly is the point? Is the blind territorial instinct some sort of failsafe on Mother Nature's part to periodically kill off millions of potential sperm donors and keep the global population down?

###

In the here & now of Trump's America, Trump is a fulminating piece of shit, of course, but his economic policies are pretty easy to understand if you see them as a game of cost-shifting: Trump promised to cut individual taxes, and cut individual taxes he shall (probably), but, of course, the U.S. needs that money. So, now instead of extorting it from individual citizens via an IRS 1040 form, he is extorting it from individual consumers via specialized excise taxes (i.e. tariffs).

One could make a strong argument, in fact, that that second way of funding the government is actually fairer since the individual has no choice over whether or not they pay income taxes, but they do have a choice over whether or not they buy a made-in-China washing machine, or a new Hyundai, or an avocado at the supermarket.

And actually, I support Trump's plan to shift millions in funding for colleges & universities to trade schools.

Some years ago, I had a conversation with a beautiful chemistry teacher in the Detroit area. She told me bluntly that the reason why so many high schools had shifted their curricula to college prep was not because their administrations had become more aspirational about student intelligence. No! It's because the college prep curriculum is significantly cheaper than shop classes and what they used to term "home economics."

Given the dismal reality of massive student debt that has turned vast numbers of college graduates into indentured servants and the fact that AI is rapidly replacing all those entry-level, white-collar jobs (that barely pay $45,000 a year with no health insurance) college prepared these poor babies for, I'd say the higher education system in the U.S. is pretty much a scam these days. It needs gutting.

###

Enough blather! Off to the garden.

Milestones of a sort

May. 31st, 2025 04:48 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

I did my split squats today and didn't hate them!

Split squats always get a groan when our trainer tells us to do them, no one likes them, but I've found them a particular trial during ankle recovery. They've so good for me that lunges (which are similar) were a formal part of my physiotherapy. But that also meant they were hard, no fun, and not terribly rewarding!

I've always been fortunate that my recovery hasn't featured a lot of pain, but that almost made it more difficult to monitor, and cope with, the intense weakness in that ankle (and the knock-on effects, like my already-atrocious balance somehow got (and remains) even worse?!).

Feeling okay until my leg just didn't hold me up properly can be unsettling!

I've patiently stuck with it, doing regular bodyweight lunges in circuits when other people are doing walking lunges with the biggest dumbbells available to us there (not very big, but still!) and having to tuck myself into the squat cage for split squats at lift club so I could hang on to the bars to keep my balance.

And now I can do (very slow, increasingly wobbly) walking lunges, and I can do split squats without hanging on to anything -- except a little kettlebell! And I might have to go up to the second-smallest size of kettlebell next time actually, I was thinking today.

It's nice to feel like I'm at about the level where I would have been starting if I hadn't broken my ankle almost immediately into taking up exercise as a hobby. I mean yes it'd be nice if it hadn't taken me a year and a half to get that far, but as with so many of the other changes in my body in the past year and a half, I try not to get caught up in what-ifs and wistful regret, and I think I am doing okay at that.

A Nervous Splendor

May. 31st, 2025 11:30 am
marycatelli: (Golden Hair)
[personal profile] marycatelli posting in [community profile] books
A Nervous Splendor: Vienna 1888/1889 by Frederic Morton

A discussion of Vienna before, around, and after the suicide of Crown Prince Rudolf.

Discusses all sorts of people. Some famous, some to be famous, others never to be more than footnotes. Creates a mood piece, possibly shaded. Discusses politics and arts. How the Hapsburgs set about modernizing Vienna by tearing down its walls, and more.

Knees & Cats

May. 31st, 2025 09:47 am
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera
Woke up yesterday with a throbbing—& slightly swollen (medial collateral ligament)—knee.

This is something that happens from time to time.

I'm fairly certain it's due to an ancient right ankle injury that causes me to pronate overly when I'm wearing the wrong shoes & not paying attention. I really should go to Montano's, which has a pedorthist on staff, to buy a pair of shoes that will correct for the pronation.

Anyway, because my knee was throbbing, I did not go to the gym, which, of course, was the sensible thing not to do. But I put myself through all sorts of mental punishment! Surely, if I were a real trouper, I'd soldier through the discomfort! I was just being lazy! Blah, blah, blah.

Thing is I am very lazy. Left to my own devices, I would lie around on my sofa all day long scarfing chocolate hazelnut truffles and watching Halt and Catch Fire on continuous loop—except for when I was reading some movie star or movie mogul autobiography. And I would thoroughly enjoy myself.

I'm not sure from whence this Calvinist sub-personality emerged that won't let me do what I like best.

###

Also, Mabel the kiska is really pissed off at me.

The enormous mat on her back is responding to the detangler solution, but she hates when it's sprayed on her and has begun running away or lashing out at me when I try to spray it on her. I now have a big scratch on my left arm.

Mabel the kiska is one distrustful cat.

I figure she was severely abused as a kitten. I am fond of her despite her intractable personality; I'm sure—just like the rest of us—she'd rather not be intractable—but she is, it's what her life has taught her to be. I'm one of those people who enter into covenants with companion animals, so however much I would prefer a cat with a more placid, loving personality—oh, Sybyl! I will always miss you!—I would never dump Mabel.

I guess I'm gonna have to end up taking her to the vet to get the mat shaved.

Which does seem like a waste of money—because, honestly, I could take care off it by myself if only she'd let me.

###

Other than that...

It rained all night, but the sky does seem to be lightening.

If it clears up by 2pm, I'll be able to make it over to Hyde Park to put the finishing touches on the self-sustaining garden.

Next week I'll tackle the New Paltz garden!

llumdelluna

May. 30th, 2025 07:14 pm
llumdelluna: (Default)
[personal profile] llumdelluna posting in [community profile] addme
Hello! I'm new in here, and it feels lonely  for now. I'd love to start getting to know people, and grow my reading list.

Name:
Laura

Age: 40s

I mostly post about: my daily life, things that happen (mostly ordinary and mundane), my thoughts, or my daily activities. I also love to post photos. I'm a psychologist, so I won't rant about work or share details about that for confidential reasons, but I might occasionally talk about my work in general, or things that concern me at the moment.

My hobbies are: outdoor activities (hiking, paddle surf), yoga and sports in general, scrapbooking, watching movies and TV shows, reading (especially graphic novels), playing videogames 

My fandoms are: I'm not really active in fandoms right now, but I don't have any problem in adding you if you're into them, as long as that's not the only content of your journal

I'm looking to meet people who: basically I'm open to meet anybody who is willing to interact. I'm a very open minded person, I like to get to know people and know more about what their life is lilke. I love journals that talk about mundane things, I find comfort in daily life and routine.

My posting schedule tends to be: I guess I'm going to post several times per week. My journal is new and I haven't added friends yet, so I might post more when I add people. 

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: racism, homophobia, and in general people who are mean to others. 

Before adding me, you should know: my account is very new, so you won't see much content for now. Please, don't let that make you think I am not an active person or a person who is not going to post, is simply that I just joined DW and is all still a blank page for me (and this can be pretty scary). I used to be a huge poster on LJ years ago (I had an active account there for years), and I really miss to have a space where to share my thoughts and daily stuff, and also read about other people's life. I have accounts on other social medial sites, but none of them is giving me the kind of connection and safe space feeling that I find in places like this, so that's why I decided to go back to journaling.. I miss all the connections I made back then through LJ, and I'd like to find a place I can call home here in DW as well.

On a last note, I was polvodestrella in LJ. I don't have access to that account anymore, and I don't know if anybody from my flist back then in there is in here and reads this If this is the case, feel free to add me back, I'd love that


They Won. We Lost. Next.

May. 30th, 2025 09:45 am
mallorys_camera: (Default)
[personal profile] mallorys_camera
One of Icky's side hustles is dog-sitting.

He showed up here yesterday with an absolutely adorable spaniel mix, an eager-to-please guy named Tofu.

Pity the poor animal that is abandoned to Icky's care! Think puppy version of Oliver Twist at the orphanage or a canine Jane Eyre at Lowood.

I felt so sorry for poor Tofu that I volunteered to take him for a walk.

We hit the rail trail in a drizzle. But practically the moment we got out of the car, the sun burst from the clouds & within five minutes, the sky was blue & in my red sweater, I was overdressed for the heat!

My mood-o-meter swung from bleak to benificent in a heartbeat.

Which makes me think I do not have Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I have Angst-When-the-Sun-Isn't-Shining Affective Disorder.

I really should move to Nevada or Arizona or something.

###

Otherwise, I spent the day Remunerating & reading Barry Diller's autobiography, which I found quite fascinating.

When Who Knew first came out, it racked up huge amounts of press because Barry Diller is gay but Barry Diller is also Mr. Diane von FĂĽrstenberg. (I must note here that back in the Jurassic when I was modeling, my two DVF wrap-around dresses were my proudest possessions, & I just love Diane von FĂĽrstenberg to death!)

For years, the assumption was that Diane von FĂĽrstenberg was a beard.

But, no, sez Diller in his autobiography. The two met & fell in love back at the dawn of time. They had passionate sex just like any other two people in love. And in between dates, Diller continued to have sex with guys.

Forty years later, they got married.

I don't understand why this is so hard for the maintream media—I am pointing my finger at yew-w-w-w-w, Daily Mail!—to comprehend.

Personally, genitalia has never been the determining factor in who I fall in love with.

I fall in love with men, I fall in love with women. And anyone I fall in love with, I want to have sex with.

(Although it occurs to me that I probably should have written that in the past tense because I doubt very much I am capable of falling in love with anyone anymore.)

Obviously, sexual desire is a spectrum.

But more than that, terms like "gay" and "cis" are essentially marketing categories—"gay" considerably more than "cis" because show me a marginalized group, & I'll show you a business development opportunity!

But anyway, Barry Diller's sexuality & love life don't interest me.

No, Barry Diller's horizontal leap from Hollywood mogul to digital tycoon is what interests me.

Today, Diller owns InterActiveCorps (IAC), a media fleet that used to include Match.com & Tinder, and still owns a lot of B-list cyber-publications. (People! Barry Diller owns People! I used to work there!) Diller also owns Expedia & all its subsidiary vassals like Tracelocity, OrbitZ, Hotwire, etc.

How do you end up owning all these companies?

Well, you start out in the William Morris mailroom, just like everybody else. And you devote the first 10 years of your career swinging from salary-star to higher salary-star, spending relatively little on status details.

And after you accumulate a stake, you start buying the little pieces of the Rube Goldberg machine that the tastemakers ridicule or overlook but that you see potential in because you have vision. Barry Diller bought the decidedly low-rent QVC because when he looked at it, he immediately understood that screens could be used for purposes other than telling stories.

That was genius-level insight.

I was around during the early days of the Internet, too, & I never had that insight! Although, of course, today—a mere 35 years later—it seems so-o-ooo obvious.

Also, Barry Diller refused to feel bad about his own failures. I mean, he registered them and felt disappointment, sure. But he refused to dwell on them. Describing a mega-deal-fallen-through to someone, he commented, They won. We lost. Next.

Which I think is a demonstration of extraordinary emotional intelligence.

Hie thee thither!

May. 29th, 2025 03:06 pm
[personal profile] cosmolinguist

Sir Ian McKellen to open historic all-trans and nonbinary production of Twelfth Night

What's this, a trans reading of my favorite Shakespeare play, fundraising for my favorite trans charity (the one that brings me that "trans gym" thing I'm always talking about)?

And there's a livestream so I can stay covid-safe? And you can watch from anywhere (for two weeks after the live performance)?

I've already got my ticket!

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