Dear fic writer:

Apr. 29th, 2026 01:10 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
It is 1992. This kid is twelve. He doesn’t know the word “gaslighting”, he doesn’t know the phrase “trauma response”, and if he knew the latter, he wouldn’t apply it to himself.

Also, there’s no such thing as a landline. It’s just a phone, so called because it transmits sound, phone, a long way, tele. It doesn’t do anything else, not even voicemail, and you need to pay extra for caller ID.

(no subject)

Apr. 28th, 2026 11:03 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
From Dutch snoepen (“to pry, eat in secret, sneak”)

How often were the Dutch eating in secret that they decided they needed a verb for it!?

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[personal profile] conuly
Don't get me wrong, I love doing them - five hours of reading, three hours of work, what's not to love? - but talking about them? Don't get me started. Every single time it's a back and forth to confirm the actual day the shift starts.

I got a shift through the staffing agency, and I say "So, to confirm, I go to work at midnight Monday?" and he goes "No, Sunday". "So, I leave my house at 11:30 today...?"

No, he meant midnight Monday to 8am Monday.

Every time I look at the schedule at the usual place I find myself momentarily baffled by the fact that the overnight shift is at the top, as the first shift of the day.

Also, literally as I typed that last sentence a spam text came in with the word "lpuuuu", which seems low effort even for a spam text. I get that their business model depends on weeding out everybody smart enough to say "Seems fake!", but seriously?

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Apr. 25th, 2026 11:10 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.


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Link

(no subject)

Apr. 23rd, 2026 08:17 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
I had an appointment with my neurologist this afternoon. The weather was nice enough that I got onion soup at the Panera in the clinic lobby and ate it outdoors before seeing Dr. Sloane.

The doctor did some low-tech neurology, including watching me walk quickly down the hall, having me walk tightrope-style to check my balance, and testing my grip strength by having me squeeze his fingers. The doctor said there was no change in those, but I think my balance was better today than at the last visit. He then sent me downstairs for blood tests: my vitamin D is where we want it (at the top of the "normal" range), and the abnormally low antibody count is what we expect from the Kesimpta.

I asked about reducing the gabapentin dose to 900 mg, since when I went from 1500 mg to 1200 the medication continued to be effective at stopping my legs from twitching at night. (For a while, it was 1500 mg, with the option of taking another 300 mg capsule if necessary. I went to 1200 after a few months of never needing the extra capsule.) The doctor said I could try it, but he would prescribe 1200 mg/day (I think the last refill was for 1500 mg/day.)

I then walked up the hill to Brigham and Women's Hospital to keep [personal profile] adrian_turtle company in the epilepsy monitoring unit. We talked some, I made some phone calls on her behalf, and I sat quietly reading next to her bed for a bit.

All in all, I did a lot of walking today, despite taking a Lyft to the neurologist; some of that was because I got turned around a couple of times, including inside the hospital. (I stayed home yesterday because my knee was bothering me, and wasn't sure how much walking I had in me today.)
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
and her excuse is "Your father and I both agreed that it was best to raise you away from my wealthy-but-toxic family, whom I was returning to". And having met the protagonist's half-siblings, I can't say that this was wrong - but what, she just loved him so much more than her younger two that she had with her new, richer, more socially acceptable husband? No matter how you look at it, she's not exactly winning the mother of the year award.

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The ACLU sent me a text

Apr. 20th, 2026 08:30 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
About their fight against the racist War on Drugs.

It includes what looks like a tea leaf emoji? Whatever sort of leaf this is, it’s not marijuana, even I know that. Maybe no emoji at all would’ve been the better call….

I saw a red-winged blackbird!

Apr. 21st, 2026 09:29 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
I didn't get a good look, seeing it as I did out a bus window, but did I have to? They're not that hard to identify.

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conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
The important thing is they have to be accessible, beginner-level poems for people who don't "get" poetry in English (or, perhaps, in any language).

Though I will say now what I only sort of suggested then, which is that I've never thought the point of reading anything is to understand it all. Sometimes it's enough to enjoy it, even if you miss a thing or ten. (This may be why I know so many Shakespeare quotes - from the age of six onwards I made repeated dives into our big copy of his collected works, and you know for sure I did not understand Elizabethan English at that age!)

A Fairly Sad Tale by Dorothy Parker

Apr. 19th, 2026 09:19 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
I think that I shall never know
Why I am thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the rush and roar of fire.
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me—I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were—shall we say?—born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song,
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm, and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic—
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?


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(no subject)

Apr. 18th, 2026 07:56 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Poll #34495 Ideal calendar behavior
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 48


When should one cross dates off the calendar?

View Answers

You cross off the current date at the start of the day
2 (4.2%)

You cross off the current date at the end of the day
30 (62.5%)

You cross off tomorrow's date at the end of the day
1 (2.1%)

You never cross anything off, ever
15 (31.2%)



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What's really dismaying

Apr. 17th, 2026 07:21 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
is that none of this was made up. Truly, I hate this timeline.

(no subject)

Apr. 18th, 2026 06:50 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
I accompanied [personal profile] adrian_turtle to an MRI facility, where she had an MRI with contrast, which hopefully will help her current neurologist figure out better medication for her seizures. Like many people, Adrian finds the contrast medium unpleasant, which is at least part of why she wanted company.

Afterwards, we went to JP Licks, where I got us both ice cream. They have non-dairy coconut almond lace ice cream this month, and there's now a pint of that in our freezer.

covid booster

Apr. 16th, 2026 05:16 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
I got a covid booster yesterday. When I told the pharmacy clerk I wanted the vaccine, he checked that the Pfizer vaccine would be OK, then started to ask when I’d gotten my last booster, stopped, and instead asked whether I’d had one in the last two months. When I said no, he asked whether I’d had covid in the last two months “as far as you know.”

The last time I'd checked, they were saying to wait at least three months after having covid, and I thought the recommended interval between boosters was also at least three months. (My previous covid booster was last fall.) Massachusetts is now advising everyone to get boosters twice a year, and having that as an official recommendation means health insurance companies will pay for it.

Jesus

Apr. 15th, 2026 12:00 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Just went to the store, spent over $90 for half a week's groceries just for me.

This is not sustainable, but it's not going to get better any time soon.

I could eat at work, but let's be clear, I don't much like the housekeeper's cooking, they rarely have in stock what I'd need to make my own food the way I like it (other than eggs), and also I have some weird food issues around... I don't really know. Eating other people's food? But not at a restaurant where it's okay? Maybe it's smelling the food? I honestly do not know, that's what makes these issues weird. (But even if I didn't, she boils the poor vegetables to death.)

At a different residence tonight

Apr. 14th, 2026 09:51 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
One of the staff has the same name as one of the residents, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out.

Late Bird by Angela Narciso Torres

Apr. 14th, 2026 12:42 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Count me among the noon risers who stumble,
dazed and bad-haired, from the nest midday,
pecking the crazed dirt for half-torn moth,
pear’s white core, severed worm. I’ve never
been one to trill at chink of dawn, to hop,
skip, chirrup before full sun. I’m better
at picking over crumbs, stitching a quilt
from what’s left, remaindered, given up
for gone. Better at betting the careless
will miss the best. Count me among
the nightbirds who sip starlight, a guitar’s
fading strains. Find me where moondust
swirls in streetlamp glow and stray dogs sleep.
What clings to the bone is most sweet.


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