The little nerd show was good. Never really busy, but steady-ish. Mostly a Pokemon/card-heavy group, didn't move any of my animanga stuff, but sold a few TFs and some random other things. Sold video games, and at the end another vendor offered me half of what I had marked on my 'expensive' PS1 games which was still way more than double? triple? what I'd paid and I said "sure!" because, like, they are out of my sale box and I have cash in hand. Next show is in April and I suppose I'll be best served by picking out more games that I'm never going to play. (Also the vendor beside us kept coming over and looking at a couple of random PSP games but said he hadn't done well enough to justify buying them. He had Pokemon plushies and I said I'd trade for a couple of cool critters. I got a Pikachu and some sort of mushroom with tentacles that made me laugh.)
It's March, so I have communities to do things with and promote in general... I have a lot of stuff to do in general. While it is still chilly at the moment, the end of the week is supposed to be impressively warm and I will be able to hopefully do a quick garage-clean. Yay!
I suppose this week, if it's as quiet as it's looking like it might be, I can work on my Redacted III contest entry. That should be easy-ish to do? Hopefully? Just need to find momentum...
It's March, so I have communities to do things with and promote in general... I have a lot of stuff to do in general. While it is still chilly at the moment, the end of the week is supposed to be impressively warm and I will be able to hopefully do a quick garage-clean. Yay!
I suppose this week, if it's as quiet as it's looking like it might be, I can work on my Redacted III contest entry. That should be easy-ish to do? Hopefully? Just need to find momentum...
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A tolerable place to go early on a Sunday; there are a lot of people later but it's not bad for a while. I started my list at 7:45 and walked out Loop Road and up Laurel Canyon a bit further than usual. Many birds were singing, Mourning Doves and Purple Finches especially, but I saw no specific mating/nesting behavior yet. I looked at the snag that had a Red-breasted Nuthatch nest last year, and I don't think it's well enough protected anymore. Snags change, lose bits, even fall over as has the snag that had the Hairy Woodpecker nest two years ago. It wasn't used last year, so perhaps it was no longer water tight. Anyway, it's gone. It also seemed to be Townsend's Warbler day; there were at least two in some small tress along the Road and another two up the Canyon. In the first couple of hours I heard several hummingbirds, including one selasphorous, but could not find them, but eventually Anna's Hummingbirds began to display and pop over my head so I knew who was there. The surprise of the morning was a Pacific Wren near the foot of Laurel Canyon Road. ( The list: )
I have not heard a White-breasted Nuthatch in the Nature Area in a while, so perhaps they've withdrawn into their preferred nesting habitat.
I have not heard a White-breasted Nuthatch in the Nature Area in a while, so perhaps they've withdrawn into their preferred nesting habitat.
Tags:
Tags:
(![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
romantical Mar. 1st, 2026 01:19 pm)
romantical Mar. 1st, 2026 01:19 pm)Last night we had a bb!hockey game that ended with us winning in overtime and a bunch of the other team's fans being awful to our team, and our teams just celebrated at them, smiling, laughing, and everything and it was delightful. Today the team posted an instagram saying "the real win was the friends we made along the way" and god, I love my team.
I'm second-guessing a thing I want to do, but I think I'm going to do it anyway. I don't know. Ugh. Feelings and stuff.
I need to go do some stuff that I didn't do yesterday while I was out because I didn't think a bout them, which sucks because I mostly just want to sit around in my PJs and nap and be on the internet. I'm supposed to be finishing up a book a friend loaned me, but it's not really doing anything for me. I'm over halfway though, so I shall persevere.
Connor Storrie was on SNL last night and...wow. SNL is awful. I mean, it's been bad in the past, but this was bad. Nothing made me laugh except Connor's stripper routine, which was something he did years ago in clown school/college/whatever. And I did love Hudson Williams being there to support his boy. They are adorable and I hope they love each other forever. There's something so lovely about people meeting and connecting on a show. It reminds me of Michelle Williams and Busy Phillips. Ugh. Friendship is the best.
Car ended up costing 5K, dental surgery was another 2K. February was a very expensive month. I also discovered Crooked Spoon ice cream which is $7.50 for a pint, but wow. Delicious.
Now I should do the errands for mundane stuff like buy new underwear, and buy gas cards for the players, and a bag for part of a very, very, very late Christmas present, and some brown paper bags for a booster club thing. I need more weekend days. And sleep days. Or better self-control. Something like that.
I'm second-guessing a thing I want to do, but I think I'm going to do it anyway. I don't know. Ugh. Feelings and stuff.
I need to go do some stuff that I didn't do yesterday while I was out because I didn't think a bout them, which sucks because I mostly just want to sit around in my PJs and nap and be on the internet. I'm supposed to be finishing up a book a friend loaned me, but it's not really doing anything for me. I'm over halfway though, so I shall persevere.
Connor Storrie was on SNL last night and...wow. SNL is awful. I mean, it's been bad in the past, but this was bad. Nothing made me laugh except Connor's stripper routine, which was something he did years ago in clown school/college/whatever. And I did love Hudson Williams being there to support his boy. They are adorable and I hope they love each other forever. There's something so lovely about people meeting and connecting on a show. It reminds me of Michelle Williams and Busy Phillips. Ugh. Friendship is the best.
Car ended up costing 5K, dental surgery was another 2K. February was a very expensive month. I also discovered Crooked Spoon ice cream which is $7.50 for a pint, but wow. Delicious.
Now I should do the errands for mundane stuff like buy new underwear, and buy gas cards for the players, and a bag for part of a very, very, very late Christmas present, and some brown paper bags for a booster club thing. I need more weekend days. And sleep days. Or better self-control. Something like that.
I went hunting for fic of these two a while back. Here are my two favorites.
Acts of Faith by![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
quietly_obsessed, 4k. "I don't believe in God, but I do believe in you". Jud and Blanc fall in love during the year after Wicks' murder. A bittersweet but lovely fic in which they find some healing in each other.
fair with her firstborn on bethlehem down byhauntinghouses, 9k. Benoit Blanc comes back to Chimney Rock just in time for Christmas. In which Blanc sets out to seduce a priest and/or not have a miserable Christmas, and ends up talking a lot more theology than he wants (but no more than he ought to have reasonably expected). If you're like the religious debates in the movie were great but what if they had them while fucking, this is the fic for you.
Acts of Faith by
fair with her firstborn on bethlehem down by
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working on a new book. today I rewrote my opening. it's better now, I think? still not saying exactly what I want it to, but it's better.
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Themes of the month
1. Comfort music, by which I mean mostly the Gallaghers. This felt like a rough month, and I listened to my big Noel playlist a lot, as well as my 2025 and “most listened” playlists. About every six months I listen to the latter and discover it has a lot of great songs on it. Who could have guessed!
2. Also in the comfort music vein, a lot of Lord Huron, mostly the new album, which has earned the extremely rare distinction of skipping the seasonal playlist phase and going straight into my year-round rotation.
3. Wuthering Heights by Charli XCX. Neeeew album! Short, and with some filler of the kind you get in an album for a movie, but still a few new songs I was into. I appreciate how she used the melodramatic vibes of the movie as an excuse to go OTT.
4. Lana del Rey. Inspired by her new single, I went back and listened to Norman Fucking Rockwell again, which I haven't listened all the way through since 2020.
My top artists (by # of streams)
1. Oasis
2. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
3. Lord Huron
4. Liam Gallagher
...I told you. 🙈
Favorite songs:
1. White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter by Lana Del Rey. Weird Lana is back!! Some of this is kind of bad tbh and is definitely her operating in the vein of Taylor's "But Daddy I Love Him," ie pissed at her fans for having opinions about her love life, but also: it's so delightfully weird. I'm into it.
2. Dying For You by Charlie XCX, my favorite of the new tracks on her WH album. Again: really took the theme of OTT melodrama to heart. <3
1. Comfort music, by which I mean mostly the Gallaghers. This felt like a rough month, and I listened to my big Noel playlist a lot, as well as my 2025 and “most listened” playlists. About every six months I listen to the latter and discover it has a lot of great songs on it. Who could have guessed!
2. Also in the comfort music vein, a lot of Lord Huron, mostly the new album, which has earned the extremely rare distinction of skipping the seasonal playlist phase and going straight into my year-round rotation.
3. Wuthering Heights by Charli XCX. Neeeew album! Short, and with some filler of the kind you get in an album for a movie, but still a few new songs I was into. I appreciate how she used the melodramatic vibes of the movie as an excuse to go OTT.
4. Lana del Rey. Inspired by her new single, I went back and listened to Norman Fucking Rockwell again, which I haven't listened all the way through since 2020.
My top artists (by # of streams)
1. Oasis
2. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
3. Lord Huron
4. Liam Gallagher
...I told you. 🙈
Favorite songs:
1. White Feather Hawk Tail Deer Hunter by Lana Del Rey. Weird Lana is back!! Some of this is kind of bad tbh and is definitely her operating in the vein of Taylor's "But Daddy I Love Him," ie pissed at her fans for having opinions about her love life, but also: it's so delightfully weird. I'm into it.
2. Dying For You by Charlie XCX, my favorite of the new tracks on her WH album. Again: really took the theme of OTT melodrama to heart. <3
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U and I went to look for the Long-tailed Duck reported in Alameda, stopping first at the end of the USS Hornet pier and scoping Seaplane Lagoon from that vantage. Mostly grebes and loons but there were two Osprey on a nest. ( The first list: )
No Long-tailed Duck from that angle so we went to the end of Monarch Street and bingo! Not only did U find it but it was a walk-up, almost as quick and close as the Yellow-billed Loon. photo U attached to the ebird list Such a tiny and interesting-looking bird! She was swimming with a flock of scaup and Surf Scoters practically in the path of the Alameda - SF ferry, and we both expected them to scatter when the ferry came by, but no. Apparently they're accustomed to this; after all, ferries pass every twenty to sixty minutes. ( The second list: )
Mission accomplished, we parked at Crab Cove and went to the duck pond, something we had never done, checking the shoreline along the way. Canada Geese, Mallards, and American Coots, of course, but also a pair of Hooded Mergansers. ( The third list: )
So a satisfying morning, especially given all the rare birds we've dipped on lately.
No Long-tailed Duck from that angle so we went to the end of Monarch Street and bingo! Not only did U find it but it was a walk-up, almost as quick and close as the Yellow-billed Loon. photo U attached to the ebird list Such a tiny and interesting-looking bird! She was swimming with a flock of scaup and Surf Scoters practically in the path of the Alameda - SF ferry, and we both expected them to scatter when the ferry came by, but no. Apparently they're accustomed to this; after all, ferries pass every twenty to sixty minutes. ( The second list: )
Mission accomplished, we parked at Crab Cove and went to the duck pond, something we had never done, checking the shoreline along the way. Canada Geese, Mallards, and American Coots, of course, but also a pair of Hooded Mergansers. ( The third list: )
So a satisfying morning, especially given all the rare birds we've dipped on lately.
Here are a couple of my favorite winter soup recipes. They're from cookbooks, so no handy online version to link to. So this is for you and also for me, so I can access these away from my cookbooks.
( Pork and hominy soup )
( Sausage, White Bean, and Kale Soup With Besar )
( Pork and hominy soup )
( Sausage, White Bean, and Kale Soup With Besar )
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(leiacat Feb. 28th, 2026 02:19 pm)
leiacat Feb. 28th, 2026 02:19 pm)It all started when my favorite dance historian inquired if we could round up a few folks to do a zoom reading of a play she was asked to choreograph. "Castelvines y Monteses" by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega - a ridiculously prolific Spanish contemporary of Shakespeare's, and based on the same plot as R&J.
( details within )
My only regret is that some folks did not get to come out and see it. I'm ludicrously proud of this project, and it's such a unique opportunity of a text that I'm sad that most of the world's population is unaware of it.
Next up: a year stage managing and producing in a row, commencing with Oscar Wilde's Salome directed by NoLabels as a tribute to the 1990s.
( details within )
My only regret is that some folks did not get to come out and see it. I'm ludicrously proud of this project, and it's such a unique opportunity of a text that I'm sad that most of the world's population is unaware of it.
Next up: a year stage managing and producing in a row, commencing with Oscar Wilde's Salome directed by NoLabels as a tribute to the 1990s.
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I feel like I'm having more and more days where I would like to wander off and become an ornamental hermit.
That is probably also a post on its own... This is, thus far, a weekend of feeling very old/turning to dust and blowing away, and general enshittification annoyances.
Beyond that, I have finished the Destiny Astray as far as I'm going to for now. Absolute nightmare, would build again in an instant. Though I suppose I'd much prefer to be able to afford the ridiculously difficult-to-get official version of the kit and build that. (I remain tickled that the not-actually-wrong translated name of the bootleg kit translated back as Heresy of Fate. So I suppose I should be calling it that.)
I will have to get some photos posted because while building it absolutely sucked, it looks gorgeous and absolutely passes the two-foot rule.
I am going to make good on my promise to build a bunch of 30MM kits for the next little bit...
There are no fewer than four gunpla/plamo contests with deadlines in March. One of which I am definitely committed to (Redacted III), another I strongly intend to do (30ML), and the others are if I have a brilliant and fast idea that I can knock out quickly and easily.
I have a lot of other projects I need to get (back) to, but at this point I just need to get myself together to get to the nerd show today and do that. One thing at a time...
(Please go vote in my poll if you haven't.)
That is probably also a post on its own... This is, thus far, a weekend of feeling very old/turning to dust and blowing away, and general enshittification annoyances.
Beyond that, I have finished the Destiny Astray as far as I'm going to for now. Absolute nightmare, would build again in an instant. Though I suppose I'd much prefer to be able to afford the ridiculously difficult-to-get official version of the kit and build that. (I remain tickled that the not-actually-wrong translated name of the bootleg kit translated back as Heresy of Fate. So I suppose I should be calling it that.)
I will have to get some photos posted because while building it absolutely sucked, it looks gorgeous and absolutely passes the two-foot rule.
I am going to make good on my promise to build a bunch of 30MM kits for the next little bit...
There are no fewer than four gunpla/plamo contests with deadlines in March. One of which I am definitely committed to (Redacted III), another I strongly intend to do (30ML), and the others are if I have a brilliant and fast idea that I can knock out quickly and easily.
I have a lot of other projects I need to get (back) to, but at this point I just need to get myself together to get to the nerd show today and do that. One thing at a time...
(Please go vote in my poll if you haven't.)
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Several folks requested texts about which I don't have too much to say... We didn't think it was possible.... Perhaps it's better this way... Anyway! Collected for your pleasure and my peace of mind:
The Lady's Not For Burning fornextian
Wow. The language is good in this one, huh??? I'm afraid I read it right after finishing Tam Lin, which ended up being an interesting experience... Couldn't help comparing it to Dean's interests--beautiful language, the marriage of minds alive to the world surrounded by idiots, particularly of a depressed man and a life-hungry woman--and the pacing flaws in Tam Lin... Lady, I think, might echo them. Not that Lady is too long, but the ending... we rise to a pitch and then we--don't. This could work on stage, I think, if you played the silences right. Worked less good in TL.
Damn it was delicious to read, though. And I'll always happily read about people getting their belief systems shaken. And they're foils? How fun.
Fleabag, Ep. 1 forqueenlua and osprey_archer
I liked it! I like watching people make expressions. I Love to See Olivia Coleman. I'm interested in the fourth wall, and I'm especially interested in reading the play that birthed the tv series, and comparing the choices. It's depressing, and the narrator sucks, but I was surprised and interested in the Friend Situation Reveal at the end of the episode, and the control of tone that reveal ... revealed. I'd love to hear why you each bounced off!
It's worth noting that I've only seen the one episode, and that I saw it on Dracula night, so I'd watched, in order, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and then Gatiss/Moffat's Dracula ep 1, and then topped it off with this. At that point, I was thrilled to watch a whole cast act. Also it was midnight by the time it finished. I do plan to watch the rest of the series, though!
The Freelancer's Bible forgenarti
I read this for my Business of Copyediting class. It's very good. I'm certain it was helped by the context, which forced me to Actually Do Things with the Information, but I really was impressed by this self-help book, alas. The writing is clear, the advice specific, the resources relevant, and the tone is cheerful and excited about the opportunities freelancing can afford people while being extremely clear-eyed about the difficulties of being a freelancer, both on the individual level and the systemic. The main author is the founder and former president of the Freelancer's Union, and so she brings a fiery labor organizer's point of view to a very entrepreneurial topic that I Appreciated. The book's a bit outdated in some respects--not everyone has a cellphone! you might consider getting wireless internet! AI doesn't exist!--but the overall guidance I found as helpful as ever.
Spirited Away forgenarti, osprey_archer, and geestellar
Stares into the middle distance. It's a good movie, Brent. No. Sorry. I watched it at a friend's place with a ton of friends, and my takeaway was, "Don't watch good movies with friends." Bless 'em. Nobody would shut up.
It was kind of an interesting experience, in that before we got started, friend H said it was one of his least favorite Ghibli films, because it doesn't have a plot. This was a shocking statement to me. Of course it has a plot. It's about Chihiro... not growing up, exactly, but becoming More Herself. We argued about this a bit to start, and friend Z brought up that it has a Japanese-style plot, and Z is of course right. The movie's a bit episodic. There's a whole near-silent sequence on the ocean train. (Beloved.) But I also just think friend H is wrong and didn't grow up reading books about practical heroines who learn to Be Themselves. Or appreciate the soot sprites enough. Or Chihiro running down the stairs. Or my wife. Or---
Spirited Away doesn't pry me open with an oyster knife the way Kiki does. It doesn't have the evil lesbian capitalist foil to a hot feral wolf girl that Mononoke does. But it's my favorite.
The Lady's Not For Burning for
nextian Wow. The language is good in this one, huh??? I'm afraid I read it right after finishing Tam Lin, which ended up being an interesting experience... Couldn't help comparing it to Dean's interests--beautiful language, the marriage of minds alive to the world surrounded by idiots, particularly of a depressed man and a life-hungry woman--and the pacing flaws in Tam Lin... Lady, I think, might echo them. Not that Lady is too long, but the ending... we rise to a pitch and then we--don't. This could work on stage, I think, if you played the silences right. Worked less good in TL.
Damn it was delicious to read, though. And I'll always happily read about people getting their belief systems shaken. And they're foils? How fun.
Fleabag, Ep. 1 for
queenlua and osprey_archer I liked it! I like watching people make expressions. I Love to See Olivia Coleman. I'm interested in the fourth wall, and I'm especially interested in reading the play that birthed the tv series, and comparing the choices. It's depressing, and the narrator sucks, but I was surprised and interested in the Friend Situation Reveal at the end of the episode, and the control of tone that reveal ... revealed. I'd love to hear why you each bounced off!
It's worth noting that I've only seen the one episode, and that I saw it on Dracula night, so I'd watched, in order, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and then Gatiss/Moffat's Dracula ep 1, and then topped it off with this. At that point, I was thrilled to watch a whole cast act. Also it was midnight by the time it finished. I do plan to watch the rest of the series, though!
The Freelancer's Bible for
genarti I read this for my Business of Copyediting class. It's very good. I'm certain it was helped by the context, which forced me to Actually Do Things with the Information, but I really was impressed by this self-help book, alas. The writing is clear, the advice specific, the resources relevant, and the tone is cheerful and excited about the opportunities freelancing can afford people while being extremely clear-eyed about the difficulties of being a freelancer, both on the individual level and the systemic. The main author is the founder and former president of the Freelancer's Union, and so she brings a fiery labor organizer's point of view to a very entrepreneurial topic that I Appreciated. The book's a bit outdated in some respects--not everyone has a cellphone! you might consider getting wireless internet! AI doesn't exist!--but the overall guidance I found as helpful as ever.
Spirited Away for
genarti, osprey_archer, and geestellar Stares into the middle distance. It's a good movie, Brent. No. Sorry. I watched it at a friend's place with a ton of friends, and my takeaway was, "Don't watch good movies with friends." Bless 'em. Nobody would shut up.
It was kind of an interesting experience, in that before we got started, friend H said it was one of his least favorite Ghibli films, because it doesn't have a plot. This was a shocking statement to me. Of course it has a plot. It's about Chihiro... not growing up, exactly, but becoming More Herself. We argued about this a bit to start, and friend Z brought up that it has a Japanese-style plot, and Z is of course right. The movie's a bit episodic. There's a whole near-silent sequence on the ocean train. (Beloved.) But I also just think friend H is wrong and didn't grow up reading books about practical heroines who learn to Be Themselves. Or appreciate the soot sprites enough. Or Chihiro running down the stairs. Or my wife. Or---
Spirited Away doesn't pry me open with an oyster knife the way Kiki does. It doesn't have the evil lesbian capitalist foil to a hot feral wolf girl that Mononoke does. But it's my favorite.
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.