Reading

tax return

Do I do it now, in the midst of everything preparatory before going away?

Or do I do it when I get back, in the midst of everything aftermath when I get home?

It's usually a tax return rather than having to pay tax, my income is taxed very highly, and there was a fair chunk of time I didn't work in 2023-2024.

ehhh. Gonna do it when I get back.

I have so many other things to do before I leave right in the middle of the 'everything is waking up and GROWING' season...

Not to mention getting my quilts in for the quilt show. Still haven't quilted one, although I've at least done the backing.

I did make a cake and got friends to eat it. it was kind of birthday cake - but more of a gift for me to make, from red velvet cake to ermine buttercream icing, and for me to decorate (rather awkwardly, imo). But it was delicious.

Entry tags:

dear fic-writer letters

The Crossing of Ships through fannish time and space... (dear author letter)

It's been a while since I've done one of these, so my apologies if it's not quite as adequate as I'd like.

Likes

Dislikes

( here, there, and everywhere )

If none of my ideas work for you, dear author, please just write the duo we matched upon and it will be fine.

ficathons

17th August - Just Married

My requestor has left me no prompts, which is sometimes worse than 'prompts I can't write'.

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19th September - Ships Crossing

If I can get the sign up in before they close. My nominations have yet to be accepted. (In fairness, I only did them half an hour ago.)

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I didn't sign up for the sedoretu exchange this year, I was deep in the weeds of life at the time and simply couldn't get the energy to sign up, let alone write a story.

Entry tags:

life

it's 8:20pm and I just want to go to bed

But I should probably at least do a little bit of my tax return research.

I tried to throw a party this evening. Only a couple of days notice. I suspect that most people didn't see the invitation (fb sucks at timeliness), and the other half weren't able to come at such short notice.

Mind you, even with notice, a lot of people don't bestir themselves to come along.

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It was a pretty good birthday. Nothing dire or terrible, at least. A day of work, and bible study at the end, and one of the bible study leaders made cupcakes, so I got a candle stuck in mine and everyone sang happy birthday.

I made a cake. Red velvet with ermine buttercream. I haven't really had a chance to eat it yet. I'm gearing up the courage to invite people around on Saturday night for post-dinner cake.

Anyway, I'm kind of tired, like I said. I've just calculated my mobile phone costs, because I use the phone for some work stuff, and other than that, I think it's health, any expenses (purchases of technology), and donations.

And then my accountant can tear her hair because I haven't put in the things she really wants and it will involve chasing me to get back to her...

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Day off tomorrow - cousin's wedding. On a Friday. With family. And we're staying in the area (other side of Sydney) for the night, both the twins and I.

Have to speak to the neighbours about feeding the cats and checking the chooks.

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Hm. Getting a bit of a headache. I wonder if it was the el cheapo dumplings we had for dinner...

Current Mood: apathetic

The character, not the actor. Although. stares into middle distance

Hot take: Tony Dinozzo is a piece of shit and always was one.

end of an era, or several of them

And so we reach the end of the effective internet.

UGH.

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What, what, issa Sunday.

Due to reasons, I'm working today. I honestly miss working weekend shifts because I get a whole bunch of stuff done and I have a day off during the week to do things like finally close my accounts at my old, shitty bank. And medical stuff. For real Tues-Sat shift = best shift with Sun-Thurs as a lovely second place.

Anywho, my incredibly lovely friend came over yesterday and helped me reorganize my storage space, sort out more donations, haul everything to the donation place, then help me tackle the floors in my apartment and set up the air purifier I ordered back in March. The floors absolutely needed attention, and my friend is a saint for helping me get started. We also had a lovely Thai meal at the place across from the leaning tower of Skokie. I need to go back to try some of the desserts. They have pumpkin custard AND Khnom Tuay.

My home is now in better shape than it's been in since probably September 2021 and I will TAKE IT. I also need to find a service to deep clean (I keep promising myself and falling through, hopefully this time!) the whole place. I want a level playing field so that I have the opportunity to make some decisions about furniture and downsizing more stuff. I want to make some choices about the comics that have been living in my closet for 15 years and reduce the dishes/bake ware in my cabinets. And my book cases (but those are lower priority atm.) Add in wanting to get rid of my current recliner, the cedar chest in my living room, likely the dining set I'm using as a craft table/mail catch-all, and the entertainment center. *flails*

It's a lot, but I'm really glad I got some help starting out.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: monsters - run river north

Entry tags:

music

It's been brought to my attention...

Because I like to overthink shit, I've been on a life-long ~journey~ to figure out what my musical tastes even are. I have mostly settled on "Basic Bitch" given that I enjoy most top 40 stuff. Even the stuff that the more informed/studied music people shit on can be stuff I enjoy. I will happily label myself an Imagine Dragons fan and they seem like they're the new Nickelback? Hell, I like a lot of Nickelback's stuff!

That said, I've parsed out that I also really like a lot of folk, country, rap, bluegrass, and am an absolute SUCKER for girlie pop. I WISH I liked funk and jazz more. I guess Americana, Stomp-Clap folk, and 2010's girlie pop have been my favored genres in the last few years with a solid sprinkle of hip-hop/country fusion. Though, I tend more towards the rap & bluegrass fusion end of the spectrum but that's because I don't really love top 40 country. I don't hate it, I just find it mostly boring. Gimme some good musicianship, dammit!

(Side note: "Gaslighter" by The Chicks has some of the best studio musicianship I've heard in the last decade. That whole album fucking smokes. I mean, it's also a great burn book, but shit the rhythm guitar is fucking stellar.)

Anyway! I've also been having a good time borrowing cd's from the library and I've decided on my next round! I haven't actually heard any Orville Peck (despite tumblr being in love with him?) but he seems up my alley. I also haven't tried out Cowboy Carter, which is a bit of a shame. Especially given how obsessed I've been with Shaboozey's last album. Related, I'm going to try Noah Cyrus' first LP. She did a feature on Shaboozey's album and I was convinced she was Marren Morris. And I really liked her voice and presence. I'll give it a shot!

Though, I remain throwing down for Cruel Youth's unreleased discography at all times. Teddy Sinclair is fucking stellar and I'm a bit grumpy at past me for not ride or dying in 2013. AND!!! Run River North is recording new music!!! AND!! So are The Builders and the Butchers!!! ISTG TB&TB are That Band for me.

Update: Aww! I finally got locked out of my old Spotify account. I tried to switch my contact email when Giggles through a fit last year and required duo authentication with a phone number (my throw aways don't get personal info) but it wouldn't let me. This time, I tried to log in, but it required a verification email. Ah well! I generally don't use the service much, but it was useful when I wanted to know if an artist's stuff was on the service or not. *shrug*

Current Mood: awake

Entry tags:

Peach season.

So, in my rush of mild motivation last weekend, I went to my favorite grocery and picked up some peaches along with some yellow heirloom tomatoes with an eye towards making one of my favorite salads. I got it from a video on how to use tomatoes a few years ago, but it's simple and SO GOOD. Basically, slice a ripe peach, a tomato of choice, some fresh basil, and a ball of fresh mozzarella, then toss those with some good olive oil, salt, pepper, and drizzle it all with some really good balsamic vinegar. Eat with bread or just a fork.

( More food chat back here. )

In other news, I've been really enjoying Angela Chen's book, Ace. It's a book who's stated aim is to inform leftie middle class people about what asexuality even is, but is also a really interesting and thoughtful interrogation of thinking about and sitting in our expectations and assumptions when it comes to assumed shared experience as humans. Reviews have made a point at how some readers are frustrated by the author framing their work through the lens of their own experience. I can see where that would be an issue, but I really do like it as a framing device/framework for exploring the subject of sexuality and romantic attraction in general. The point is that even people who claim asexuality and/or aromanticism as an identity or sexuality also have assumptions and expectations to unpack because they're raised in a society and have their own experiences and expectations.

It's honestly a book I think I'd recommend to people aside from the asexuality aspect. (Hilarious, I know.) But I like how gentle this book is about asking the reader to take a hard look at why exploring their own assumptions of identity and sexuality might be difficult and showing that the reader is not alone and that the author had to do that too!

And I did start a book about Mesopotamian cuisine (with translated recipes!) and am looking forward to reading the rest of it. I kind of love the theme that food is such a fundamental and almost boring part of existence that we often don't think to talk about it much or record the day-to-day stuff. But that day-to-day says more about a culture or group of people than pretty much anything else. Food is the intersection of politics, culture, and geography in so many cool ways. Also, I'm reminded I really don't know much about Mesopotamia other than my dim memories of 7th grade World Cultures class. And Ea Nasir's shenaniganery.

Entry tags:

chores,
life

Feh.

Traditionally, August/September has been a challenging time for my brain. These days it's medicated and I found something interesting happening. For the last few months I've just not had the energy or interest in doing more than the very basic minimum. This got rubbed in my face last weekend with the mountain of laundry I needed to tackle.

I mention any of this because I actually felt motivated and engaged this weekend. I did some long-standing house chores that had been neglected AND I started tidiying my home. I also put a date on the calendar to get a friend to come over and help me clean/get the stuff taken down to get donated. I am going to try to get something on the calendar later to deep-sort my storage closet. There's a lot in there that can be passed on. I really want to downsize a lot of stuff because I can just feel it closing in. I need to do a deep sort of my book cases as well, but that can wait a while. So can the dvd weed.

Anyway, it's nice to have a tiny little glimmer of motivation. I need a lot of it in the next few months, but I will do my best to protect the wee bit I have.

stuff

It's a bit funny, I've been getting more comments on my fics lately.

People coming back to re-read, a couple of new commenters, and some people who just say "good fic".

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I made quilts! I mean, I'm almost always making quilts, but this year is kind of the "oh fuckit, I'm going to just sew stuff because I have SO MUCH FABRIC and I need to be rid of some of it" attitude.

Also, I have a list of people the length of my arm who I would like to give quilts to, and still have not. Need to pull my finger out.

There's a local woman who I get to quilt my quilt tops, and while she's decent, it's not quality work. Which is fine by me. It stiches the top and backing together, I bind it, it's cheap and DONE. But a few quilting friends of the...older persuasion...have been nudging me to try other quilters. And I might for these quilts:

( the peacock communique quilts )

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Just had a sparky (electrician) around to quote for some work. Chatty guy. I always seem to get the chatty tradies. We'll see how much they charge, although he seems a decent sort.

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Creative writing last week was almost completely non-existent. I'm just losing my will to put words on a page, to tell stories.

I'm going back and re-reading old book series, though. I re-read The City Who Fought from McCaffrey's Brainship series, and am once again SUPER DOOPER MAD at the "sequel" all over again. Which was written by McCaffrey's co-author for The City Who Fought, and was vastly inadequate to the characters, the Brainship series, and whatever genre they were writing int.

Fortunately, The Ship Who Searched (co-written with Mercedes Lackey) is still my happy place, tyvm. I could take a thousand stories of Tia and Alex exploring the galaxy.