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Friday, 25 July 2025 08:46
lirazel: A close up of Jane Eyre as portrayed by Ruth Wilson in the 2006 version ([tv] not a bird)
[personal profile] lirazel
Two things, both for my parents!

1. My parents are planning on going to Ireland (both Northern and Republic of) for two weeks in the spring, and it is my job to plan their trip. Of course I'll be consulting, like, Rick Steves and other travel guides, but I'd love to hear any recommendations, tips, etc. anyone has!

2. My mom has a new Bible and it's soft-cover and she's trying to find the best solution to make sure it doesn't get all torn up.

I know how to find protective covers like this or this but only in large amounts for library use. I have no idea how to find things for individual use.

Of course she can always just buy some contact paper, but I'd rather come up with something a bit sturdier if I can.

Anyone got any ideas?

July 25, 2025 & August 3, 2025

Friday, 25 July 2025 05:56
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
July 25. If you plan a trip away for leisure, what would be your ideal itinerary?

It really depends on the length of the trip and if we are spending it all in one place. If we are, then I like getting a vacation rental so that we can have at least some breakfasts and maybe other meals in, rather than eating out 3 meals a day every day. I like going places that have varied choices: museums, architecture, old churches, things of historical significance. Towards the end, I like a vacation from vacation; a couple days to just be lazy, maybe walk on the beach, etc. before getting back to real life.

August 3. Have you ever played hopscotch?

I have, but it has probably been thirty years ago.

(no subject)

Thursday, 24 July 2025 08:40
lirazel: The members of Lady Parts ([tv] we are lady parts)
[personal profile] lirazel
Two things I wanted to say about the books from yesterday that I forgot about and did not remember until I woke up this morning:

1. There was a chapter in the Lynskey book about zombie apocalypses, and one thing he noted was that part of the popularity of zombie apocalypses as a particular flavor of apocalypse is that they allow for unlimited amounts of violence that can't be morally judged because zombies aren't "real" (living) people. They allow for fantasies that are as violent as anyone wants them to be, and justify the kind of stockpiling of weapons that preppers in the US do anyway.

Obviously there are other things going on, and there are people who enjoy that kind of story that aren't in it as an excuse for violence, but I think he's right that that's one reason they're so popular today.

2. My big takeaway from Proto is the reminder that people have always moved around and societies/languages have always changed. Moving around is one of the things people do. No people have a true "homeland" since all of us came from the same place originally and unless you're from a very specific part of what is now Africa, your ancestors moved around a lot in the past millennia. There are places in the world where we can say, "These were the first people who lived here" (mostly in Oceania) but for the vast majority of liveable land in the world, successive waves of people have lived there. It's a beautiful thing to have a particular and deep relationship with a specific area of land, but that land is not a given people's in any meaningful sense. At one point in time, a completely different set of people had a relationship with that land; in the future, there will almost certainly be still another set of people who have a relationship with it. Two groups of people can have a relationship with it at the same time, and both relationships are legitimate!

The same goes for language: there is no such thing as a pure language. The only way to keep a language pure is to kill it, freezing it in amber. The very act of using language changes it, which means it changes constantly. This is one of the beautiful things about language, one of the things that makes it useful--we're constantly inventing new words and grammatical constructions to describe new experiences or to explain old experiences in new ways. Languages die out all the time, and new languages are developing right now, even if we can't tell because the rate of change is beyond our lifetime.

All of this makes me more of a globalist and makes me hate nationalism even more.

Now, I'm not using this as an excuse to justify any historical atrocities. I think "Indigenous" is a very useful political category. It's obviously morally wrong to go to a new place and conquer it via violence; it's morally wrong to stop people from using their language under threat of force. Violent change is wrong. But non-violent change is just...life. It's what humans do. So I find it genuinely tragic when a language dies out, but so long as it happens naturally, it's just the way of life, like a person dying old in their bed. Always sad! But also natural! As opposed to someone being murdered or being deprived of what they need to live.

People are people are people are people and we always have been. I am a person who delights in the diversity of human experience, societies, perspectives, cultures, languages. But what we share is ultimately more important. And these ideas are not in conflict: our diversity, our specificity is one of the things we share! But it makes zero sense to me to try to draw lines between people and say that one group is inherently different (always with implications of inferiority/superiority) than another. Y'all means all y'all!

July 24, 2025 & August 2, 2025

Thursday, 24 July 2025 06:49
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
July 24. How are you feeling today?

I feel ok; a bit tired. I woke up with the alarm at 5, but turned it off and fell back to sleep for 45 minutes, so now I feel groggy.

August 2. Do you like milkshakes? What’s your favourite flavour?

I love chocolate milkshakes made with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup/sauce. I do not have them much. I would say it has been a couple of years.

what i'm reading wednesday 23/7/2025

Wednesday, 23 July 2025 17:11
lirazel: Michael and Saru from Star Trek Discovery hug ([tv] discovery hugs)
[personal profile] lirazel
What I finished:

+ Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser.

What a weird book. I was excited about this one because I appreciated her Prairie Fires, a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder that won a Pulitzer, so very much. But this book was...not as good as that one.

Fraser grew up on Mercer Island, Washington in the Puget Sound in the 60s and 70s. In this book, she weaves together a bunch of strands:

* memoir-like scenes of growing up there
* the inordinate amount of serial killers that the state of Washington produced in the 20th century
* overviews of those many serial killers and their activities
* the history of smelting and heavy metal-producing industries in Tacoma (with jaunts to El Paso, Idaho, and Wichita so she can draw in some outside-the-PNW serial killers like BTK and Nightstalker)
* environmental tirades (complimentary) against corporate polluters, particularly the Guggenheims (bonus points for managing not to be antisemitic)
* facts and figures about the dangers of lead and arsenic poisoning and the truly obscene amounts of lead and arsenic people in the Puget Sound area were living with for most of the 20th century
* a series of stories about people who died on a particularly dangerous and irresponsible floating bridge that connected Mercer Island with the mainland
* a somewhat tortured metaphor about the Olympic–Wallowa lineament
* how much Tacoma sucks

Now, actually, many of these things are connected, and I can see how she thought she could make them all work together, but frankly, she didn't quite manage it. At least as far as I'm concerned.

The two main throughlines are Fraser's big ideas: 1. her theory that the ridiculously elevated levels of lead and other metals in the Puget Sound area are the reason there are so many serial killers from the area and 2. her contention that, really, Americans just don't care about human lives when there's money to be made. She may be right about the first idea. She's definitely right about the second.

The trouble is, she doesn't argue any of this straightforwardly. Everything is by implication; she thinks that by having a section about the lead and arsenic pumped into the air above the area of Tacoma where Ted Bundy grew up immediately before a description of something that Ted Bundy did, she's arguing that Ted Bundy did what he did because of lead poisoning, but she never actually argues that. The book is overwritten in that ~look what impressive prose I'm writing~ way, and it moves rapidly back and forth between various scenes till it's hard to keep up with which serial killer she's talking about at the moment (endless descriptions of young women and the terrible things that happened to them--I skimmed over most of the descriptions. I didn't need that in my life) and who we've met before. She's also very hung up on this particular incredibly dangerous bridge and how the powers that be didn't do anything about it even though people were dying on it at an alarming rate over decades. It's just so much.

As for the memoir-y parts, I think that she thinks that she's writing a story about what it's like to grow up in a place where lives are cheap, but the snippets we see of her own life are...not about that. She never tells us how it feels to be surrounded by all this death, so why are the memoir-y parts even there? We learn that her dad was an absolute asshole (definitely emotionally abusive, possibly physically too?), and maybe she wants us to think this is because of lead poisoning too? But she never says that, and the majority of her memories are not about him at all. There's a scene where she goes to a Star Trek con? And I'm like, "Well, I would read an essay about you going to a Trek con in the 70s, but what's it got to do with this book?" Is she just trying to show how life carries on even when people are dying from lead-caused cancer, horrible car wrecks, and unhinged misogynists? I don't think I needed that reminder, really.

She's full of righteous rage about the insane amount of pollution that people have to live (and die) with because some people make a lot of money off pumping it into the air and water. She's full of righteous rage about how nobody cared about all those people dying on the bridge because it would have been expensive to change the bridge. She's very, very good at making you care about needless death. I appreciate those things, but to me, they felt undercut by switching from descriptions of those things over to descriptions of what [serial killer] did to his victims.

As for her theory about serial killers being created by lead poisoning: I think she very well might be onto something here, but because she doesn't argue this in a straightforward manner so she never actually has to confront the weaknesses of her argument. Now, I think the causal relationship between high levels of lead and violent crimes in the US as charted over the course of the 20th century is really quite compelling. I lean towards believing that the two things are indeed connected.

But she's trying to convince us that this kind of lead poisoning produces particularly screwed-up killers, and because she never actually argues this, she never has to answer questions like: why are there way more serial killers in the industrial parts of the Pacific Northwest than in equally polluted parts of the Rust Belt? Why are most serial killers white when we know damn well that communities of color (especially Black and Indigenous ones) have some of the highest rates of environmental poisoning in the country? If the relationship between lead and this specific kind of brutal, misogynist, sexual violence was so straightforward, wouldn't we have seen a lot more serial killers who weren't white? There's this very weird moment where she acknowledges that Black neighborhoods in particular get a ton of pollution and then talks about the moral panic over crime in the 80s and 90s, but she's like, "But the real superpredators are white men." I don't disagree with that statement on its own, but in the context of the larger book, what are you trying to say here, lady?

Maybe she has answers to these questions of mine! But she doesn't allow space in the text to ask them, so how do I know?

By keeping her focus so tightly on the Pacific Northwest, she also never has to address what we might learn from similar situations all over the world. There are many, many places where people are still being poisoned by nearby industries; are their crime rates soaring? What do their most violent crimes look like? She briefly visits Ciudad Juarez to imply (because she never, ever does anything as straightforward as argue) that the femicides there were caused by lead poisoning, but that's the only extra-national location she touches on.

The book is readable, it's just frustrating! Like, lady, if you wanted to write a book arguing that lead poisoning caused serial killers, write that book. If you wanted to write a book about what it was like growing up in a place where human lives were taken so lightly, write that book. If you wanted to write a book about how capitalism prizes money over human lives, write that book. As it is, you didn't write any of them. You tried to do it all, you told it in a style over substance way, and so it didn't quite work.

ANYWAY!

I also finished two audiobooks:

+ Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World by Dorian Lynskey. Read by the author, this was a good thing to have on while I worked. Lynskey is very interested in...the stories we tell ourselves about the end of the world, mostly through newspapers, fiction, and film. He divides things up by various potential world-enders--asteroids, the atomic bomb, climate change, etc. He gives us the historical context of these stories--the 1816 year without a summer, the development of the atomic bomb, the theories that people had about nuclear winter--but he's mostly concerned about how the wider culture talked about these ideas both overtly and implicitly. There's a ton in here about very weird texts written by very misanthropic white dudes, but it's all very interesting.

It's a nice sweeping book, in that he starts with Mary Shelley, goes through Jules Verne, visits a bunch of lesser-known mid-century disaster books, and comes right up to the present day and Don't Look Up. I thought he did a pretty decent job of balancing the main thing he wants us to remember--that people have been thinking the world was coming to an end since...since the world began, basically, and they've always been wrong--and the fact that climate change is real and is already having major affects on us. Those are hard things to balance!

Two things that made me extremely fond of Lynskey: he is quick to call out misanthropy where he sees it (often his tone is, "Wtf is up with this really weird white dude???") and also thinks that Deep Impact is a vastly superior movie to Armageddon in every conceivable way.

+ Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney about the Indo-European language family and its development. I am going to have to read this one myself. It just isn't nearly as suited to audiobook-listening as other books are. But my audiobook hold came in before the ebook one, so I listened to it.

I really dig learning anything we can about pre-history and anything about language development, so I was already inclined to like this book. I appreciated the way that Spinney tries to synthesize the latest theories from archaeology, linguistics, and genetics to create sketches of what life might have been like at various times and in various places. She explains linguistic concepts very clearly and seems especially to love thinking about how people's material situations would have affected how they spoke. She's very clear about when we know things for sure (rarely, given the age of what we're talking about), when things are speculative, which things have a lot of support, which things are fringe theories, etc. It feels like responsible "reporting on academic ideas to a general audience" to me, and that is a very difficult thing to do!

All in all, I think this is a strong book, but I'll need to read it with my own two eyes to properly appreciate it.

What I'm currently reading:

+ Re-reading The Dawn of Everything for a book club. Enjoying it again so far!

+ Half of The Time of Green Magic, a MG book about a blended family in London and their magical house. Wonderfully written, but I put it aside to finish up the other things I had to finish before they were due at the library. I will definitely finish it though!
veronyxk84: (Drabble entries Spike)
[personal profile] veronyxk84
Navigation Button - Weekly Drabbles

Title: Seeking Redemption
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairing: Spike
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word count: 300 (Google Docs)
Setting/Spoilers: Set in S7, after ep. 7x02 “Beneath You”
Summary: Spike is alone in the church, hugging a cross...
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created for fun and no profit has been made. All rights belong to the respective owners.

Prompts: Breach, Split, Cold Morning, Giant, Clear [Card Blackout!] by [tumblr.com profile] julybreakbingo, [tumblr.com profile] julybreakbingoevent, [community profile] julybreakbingopresents
Crossposted: Sunnydale After Dark


READ: Seeking Redemption/Triple drabble )

PreJBB-Flash-25_Blackout.jpeg
 

seasons_of_fandom promotional post

Tuesday, 22 July 2025 22:10
flareonfury: (Default)
[personal profile] flareonfury
 
[community profile] seasons_of_fandom  is a multifandom challenge community, similar to any 'land communities from the LJ days, where you join a team and produce fanworks and participate in various games to help your team earn points. Let them know I sent you if you join! The first round officially starts August 29th, but some pre-round challenges are here.

July 22, 2025

Tuesday, 22 July 2025 07:09
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
22. Do you know how to play backgammon? How about chess?

I would have to get refreshed on Backgammon, because it has been many years since I played. It had been a while since I played chess, but Duolingo recently added it, so I have started relearning and playing it there.

We are preparing to go on a shortish trip to Italy (8 days including 2 flying days) next week, so I have started gathering and printing the stuff I would like to have to take with us. We are not doing anything too adventurous, 2 days in Turin, 2 around Mount Blanc, and 2 in Milan. The weather is seeming to calm down a bit from the oppressive heat...fingers crossed it stays that way. I will start doing some extra daily questions to make up for the days I will miss.
veronyxk84: (Drabble entries Spike)
[personal profile] veronyxk84
Navigation Button - Weekly Drabbles

Title: One of a Kind
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Author: [personal profile] veronyxk84
Characters/Pairing: Spike (implied Spuffy)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word count: 200 (Google Docs)
Spoilers/Setting: Set post series, in an alternate reality where Buffy and Spike are an established couple.
Summary: Spike has contrasting feelings about a special gift he and Buffy received for their wedding.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created for fun and no profit has been made. All rights belong to the respective owners.

Challenge: #485 Face by [community profile] fan_flashworks
Challenge: [July 10 out of 20] Amazing by [community profile] sweetandshort
Crossposted: Sunnydale After Dark


READ: One of a Kind/Double drabble )
 

(Belated) Sunday Motivational Post

Monday, 21 July 2025 21:28
apachefirecat: Made by Apache (Default)
[personal profile] apachefirecat

Sorry this is late, guys. We've suddenly had A LOT going on -- A LOT of bad but some seriously good things too. This is going to be the last post for a little while, but please know I love you all!!! Also, if you want, pm me and I'll give you my number for texting.

Didn't get to finish this post, but just sharing what I had brought together in the hopes that it will/can help at least one soul out there. :)

Please do continue with your learning/therapy/sermons while I'm gone, and hey, if you find something really good, don't hesitate to share it! Much love and hugs hugs to you all!!!

Also, those vision boards, guys, like Steve Harvey and others talk about, really DO work!!! Our way of getting things done, though, is not always the good Lord's way, but in the end, it all works out according to His plan -- and thereby for our good!






Read more... )
apachefirecat: Made by Apache (Default)
[personal profile] apachefirecat
Please be sure to stop by and give the creators some love! Remember, feedback is the breakfast of Champions!

Sorry this is late, guys. We've suddenly had A LOT going on -- A LOT of bad but some seriously good things too. This is going to be the last post for a little while, but please know I love you all!!! Also, if you want, pm me and I'll give you my number for texting.







Read more... )

July 21, 2025

Monday, 21 July 2025 08:22
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
21. Have you ever traced your family tree?

No, I haven't. Part of me isn't all that interested. Also, It would be somewhat difficult to fill in the missing information.
veronyxk84: (Drabble entries Spike)
[personal profile] veronyxk84
Navigation Button - Weekly Drabbles

Title: Another Lifetime
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairing: Spike
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word count: 100 (Google Docs)
Setting/Spoilers: Set in a post-series future
Summary: Dawn is graduating as a Watcher for the new Slayer Organization; Spike sets foot in his hometown after a long time.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created for fun and no profit has been made. All rights belong to the respective owners.

Prompt: #451 - Work of Art by [community profile] 100words
Challenge: #459 - Going to Pot by [community profile] drabble_zone
Prompt: Coming back to their hometown after years away by [tumblr.com profile] julybreakbingo [tumblr.com profile] julybreakbingoevent [community profile] julybreakbingopresents
Crossposted: Sunnydale After Dark


READ: Another Lifetime )

LJ Idol Prompt 4: Figure of speech

Sunday, 20 July 2025 17:42
garnigal: (Default)
[personal profile] garnigal

I grew up in rural Ontario. It was a very homogenous town, where we all had the same frame of references - sports, farming, the same food and traditions.


And then I grew up and moved to the city for University.


It wasn’t even a big city, but there was certainly a variety of different perspectives, different backgrounds, different frames of reference. I learned so much, not just in class, but by being surrounded by new people. But even there, it was still southwestern Ontario - whiteness and English language ruled.


Things changed after graduation. In my career, I worked with many people for whom English is not their first language, particularly Canadian English. I’ve enjoyed that diversity, but mostly I’ve enjoyed helping define the random turns of phrase that come up in discussion without even thinking about the confusion you are creating.


In my 25 year career, I’ve been a tech writer, an editor, a trainer, a knowledge manager. The commonality is communication. With that focus, I’ve seen teams made and broken by poor or excellent communication. 


“What is two-four?” “What is dart?” “What is give’r?”


It is my honour to be the person asked when language is used in unusual ways. It’s improved my own communications, not just with my colleagues, but also with my family.


We are a playful species, and our biggest game in language. We use it to connect or separate, to build or destroy. In the end, the opposable thumb and tool using may have made us capable, but language using is what made us human.


July 20, 2025

Sunday, 20 July 2025 11:30
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
20. Are there any artisan food markets or farmer’s markets held close to where you live? Do you visit often?

There are a few local food (sourced from within 100 miles) in our area and each town has their own farmer's market. I go to at least one of each every week from May - November.

July 19, 2025

Saturday, 19 July 2025 11:37
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
19. Do you like spicy foods such as chilli peppers?

I do, but do not have the tolerance that I did when we lived in New Mexico.

July 18, 2025 & Friday Five

Friday, 18 July 2025 09:41
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
18. Are you good at arranging cut flowers? Have you ever tried Ikebana?

I a pretty good at it. I love fresh flowers, although my allergies do not in the spring and summer. I usually have some at Christmas. I will but various bunches and mix/arrange them to my liking.

Friday Five:

5. Name five favorite movies.

Sleepless in Seattle, The Trouble with Angels, The Apartment, Urban Cowboy (I know...) and White Christmas

4. Name four areas of interest you became interested in after you were done with your formal education.

World War 2, World War 1, Art, Ancient Architecture

3. Name three things you would change about this world.

Greedy and power hungry politicians, Lack of caring for your fellow humans, Lack of caring for what you are doing to the planet

2. Name two of your favorite childhood toys.

My "Vickie" babydoll, My "Frogger" handheld video game

1. Name one person you could be handcuffed to for a full day.

My husband K

July 17, 2025

Thursday, 17 July 2025 07:56
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
17. If you enjoy tea, how do you make it – with a teabag, with loose-leaf tea, in a mug or in a teapot?

I like tea occasionally. If I am making it for myself, I will just use a tea bag and cup, but if my BIL is visiting he makes it with loose tea and a pot.

(no subject)

Wednesday, 16 July 2025 22:30
snickfic: Oasis: Liam and Noel Gallagher, text "Some Might Say" (Oasis)
[personal profile] snickfic
- As mentioned, I signed up for [community profile] battleshipex. I guess this was a good decision(??), becuase I've now written 8400 words across six fics in the past six days. That plus an impulsive art piece meant I capped out for board 1, which feels like absolute crazypants. I hope I like the fics okay when I go back and edit them...

I might be a little burned out now. If my team reaches board 2 before I leave for my trip, then maybe I will feel like writing a couple more things, but if not, that's also fine. I've more than doubled my participation the other year I played, so!

- I continue to play Cult of the Lamb. It's so fricking cute. I've beat the main boss and am now indulging in the extras like sending my cute followers to the mating tent where they make eggs that hatch into more cute followers. My only complaint is that the music is extremely repetitive, just one samey jingle for the home base and another for combat.

- The Oasis tour has started, and I've been trying to avoid hearing too much about it, but I DID have friends sending me tons of photos and videos from the first couple of nights, and they hugged?? Noel CRIED????? They walked out together, and Liam took Noel's hand and lifted it like he was a prizefighter? Have I mentioned Noel CRIED.

The first gig was July 4, which meant I was getting all this at the same time I was trying to be social at a cookout.
Me on the outside: So you finished that degree? Congratulations!
Me on the inside: OH MY GODDDDDDD THEY HUGGGGGGED.

I peeked at the forum around that time, and everyone there was absolutely euphoric. Cannot WAIT to see it all for myself! SOON.

July 16, 2025

Wednesday, 16 July 2025 08:20
lizzybuffy2008: (Default)
[personal profile] lizzybuffy2008
16. Do you know any sign language? Have you heard of Makaton?

I used to know the alphabet, but am rusty on that. It is something I need to learn more of and K as well, just in case my hearing really goes...No, but I am going to look it up now.

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