Apologies and short catch-up
Feb. 24th, 2026 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniWe seem to have gotten behind here. My apologies. Allow me to sum up.
On Saturday, February 21, I gave my presentation at the Waterville Public Library to a small, but enthusiastic room. Questions were asked and answered, books were signed. I had a good time.
I came home and collapsed, got up Sunday, did some work on the WIP, cleaned up the chaos in my "business office," and noticed that my back was hurting.
Aha! I said to myself. Self, this is a perfect time to test the pain-killing features of a thc gummy (1/4 strength). Possibly, I was not wrong; nonetheless, it wasn't my best thought ever. It turns out that thc, even in small amounts, gives me a Really Ugly high, which I could have put up with, if it had nailed the pain, which it didn't. Worse, it didn't even put me to sleep.
Followed Monday, with back pain and exhaustion, being treated with Motrin Duo, and today, Tuesday, when I though I had gotten ahead of it, and actually worked an hour on the WIP this morning before the pain came screaming back, so that's two lost days, and I? Am not amused.
I am feeling somewhat better this evening -- witness the fact that I am writing to you here.
I thought I had to go out tomorrow for a bone density test, and was weighing the wisdom of that, but it seems I misremembered, and the test is on Thursday afternoon, by which time, she said sternly, I hope to GHOD I'm back to what I like to call normal.
So, in terms of catch up -- y'all didn't miss much, and I'm actually glad you missed most of it. Here's a pic from my talk. Photo by Kiri Guyaz.
Books read in 2026
Feb. 24th, 2026 06:06 pmrolanni9 *I Dare (Liaden Universe® #6), Sharon Lee & Steve Miller*
8 Cuckoo's Egg, C J Cherryh, (audio first time)
7 *Plan B, (Liaden Universe® #4), Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
6 Getting Rid of Bradley, Jennifer Crusie (audio first time)
5 *Carpe Diem (Liaden Universe® #3), Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
4 *Conflict of Honors (Liaden Universe® #2), Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
3 *Agent of Change (Liaden Universe® #1), Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
2 A Gentleman in Possession of Secrets (Lord Julian #10), Grace Burrowes (e)
1 Spilling the Tea in Gretna Green, Linzi Day (e)
________
*I'm doing a straight-through series read in publication order
**I screwed up and moved right on to I Dare from Plan B, therefore deviating from publication order. I will now amend myself and go back to pick up Local Custom.
Climate Change
Feb. 24th, 2026 02:31 pmysabetwordsmithSpace lasers reveal oceans rising faster than ever
A new 30-year analysis reveals that melting land ice is now the main force behind rising global sea levels. Researchers discovered that oceans rose about 90 millimeters since 1993, with most of the increase coming from added water mass rather than just warming expansion. Ice loss from Greenland and mountain glaciers accounts for the vast majority of this gain. Even more concerning, the rate of sea-level rise is accelerating.
A new 30-year analysis reveals that melting land ice is now the main force behind rising global sea levels. Researchers discovered that oceans rose about 90 millimeters since 1993, with most of the increase coming from added water mass rather than just warming expansion. Ice loss from Greenland and mountain glaciers accounts for the vast majority of this gain. Even more concerning, the rate of sea-level rise is accelerating.
Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, March 3
Feb. 24th, 2026 02:27 pmysabetwordsmithThis is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, March 3, 2026. Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "World Cuisine." I'll be soliciting ideas for cooks, fusion chefs, immigrant cooks, eaters, farmers, foragers, food scientists, inventors, recipe writers, famous figures in food history, cooks of disadvantaged groups who should have become famous, superheroes, supervillains, failure analysts, ethicists, activists, rebels, other people active in the food world, cooking, gardening, harvesting, foraging, preserving, writing recipes, discovering things, decolonizing diets, building or using kitchen equipment, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, kitchens, restaurants, food trucks or carts, campfires, barbecue sites, laboratories, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, picnics, grocery stores, farmer's markets, roadside fruit stands, U-pick farms, gardens, food forests, other places where people make food, world cuisine, ethnic cuisines, cookbooks, online recipe archives, permaculture, heritage diets, climatarian diet, traditional foodways, culinary archaeology, food sovereignty, drought-resistant crops, trial and error, ethnic spice sets, weird food, fusion food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, new ideas in cuisine, alternate agriculture, lab conditions are not field conditions, ethics of food, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.
Among my more relevant series for the main theme:
An Army of One has to figure out how to feed a diverse, far-flung group of people who sometimes have special dietary needs.
The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, including some aspects of food science.
A Conflagration of Dragons has the Six Races (plus the dragons) who all have different diets. This often poses challenges for the refugees.
Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find and prepare enough food to survive, when city libraries are out of reach.
Fiorenza the Wisewoman uses herbs and healing foods to care for her village.
Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania. Igor enjoys cooking and has gotten at least one of the werewolves curious about cooking the human way.
Hart's Farm is a community with food used as one of the popular bonding methods.
Peculiar Obligations combines Quakers and pirates in the Caribbean, among other groups and places, leading to a wide variety of foods.
Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all of whom need to eat. Primal soups and high-burn soups often have special dietary needs. Comfort food and healing food are also very popular here. The Rutledge thread includes Kardal and his food truck Syrian Foods, along with references to Vermont, French, and hippie cuisines. Pain's Gray, Shiv, and the Finns are all fond of cooking too.
Or you can ask for something new.
Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.
If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.
( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )
Among my more relevant series for the main theme:
An Army of One has to figure out how to feed a diverse, far-flung group of people who sometimes have special dietary needs.
The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, including some aspects of food science.
A Conflagration of Dragons has the Six Races (plus the dragons) who all have different diets. This often poses challenges for the refugees.
Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find and prepare enough food to survive, when city libraries are out of reach.
Fiorenza the Wisewoman uses herbs and healing foods to care for her village.
Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania. Igor enjoys cooking and has gotten at least one of the werewolves curious about cooking the human way.
Hart's Farm is a community with food used as one of the popular bonding methods.
Peculiar Obligations combines Quakers and pirates in the Caribbean, among other groups and places, leading to a wide variety of foods.
Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all of whom need to eat. Primal soups and high-burn soups often have special dietary needs. Comfort food and healing food are also very popular here. The Rutledge thread includes Kardal and his food truck Syrian Foods, along with references to Vermont, French, and hippie cuisines. Pain's Gray, Shiv, and the Finns are all fond of cooking too.
Or you can ask for something new.
Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.
If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.
( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )
a nice walk, a day after the blizzard
Feb. 24th, 2026 03:24 pmredbirdI have just been out for a walk, a day after the blizzard: bright blue sky, temperature around freezing, and most but not all of the sidewalks have been cleared, so I walked down the middle of the street for a bit. The turkey flock that hangs out on Egremont Road is now up to at least 12 birds, two of which were sitting on a railing. [We got 16-18 inches of snow, I think--the official number from the airport is 16.5, which is significant, but a lot less than this storm dumped on some places.]
Low expectations, but apparently not low enough...
Feb. 24th, 2026 02:09 pmbrithistorianI don't expect much from Goodreads, but I was still surprised to learn that Goodreads members have named The Hunger Games as the "best book ever"!
Birdfeeding
Feb. 24th, 2026 01:16 pmysabetwordsmithToday is cloudy and cold with howling wind. A beautiful day to stay indoors and write!
I fed the birds. Unsurprisingly I haven't seen any.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 2/24/24 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
A flock of sparrows is braving the wind to visit the feeders. :D
.
I fed the birds. Unsurprisingly I haven't seen any.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 2/24/24 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
A flock of sparrows is braving the wind to visit the feeders. :D
.
New at BVC from Alicia Rasley, a Regency CSI Mystery!
Feb. 24th, 2026 12:34 pmalfreda89Alicia writes beautifully, and loves the Napoleonic Era. So this is probably great!
*A secret meeting. . .the wrong interruption. . .a murder unsolved. Can she rely on a man she has never trusted?*
Book View Cafe is delighted to announce a #Regency CSI tale from Alicia Rasley, MURDER AT THE BRIGHTON INN. Now in #ebook & #paper!
#RegencyCSISeries, #RegencyPeriod, #RegencyRomance, #ForensicMystery, #MysteryDetective #TraditionalRegencyRomance
https://bookviewcafe.com/bvc-announces-murder-at-the-brighton-inn-by-alicia-rasley/
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
*** More plot if you want more teaser--the link goes to a sample, too.
Their secret meeting at the Brighton Inn is interrupted by a man from the past…. and a murder unsolved. Can she rely on a man she has never trusted?
It’s a decade after Napoleon’s defeat, but the war still haunts even the victors. Linked by family and by grief, divided by social class, Russian widow Natasha and navy doctor Matthew have lived for years in mutual distrust. But when she’s suspected of killing a man from her past, she reaches out to Sir Matthew for help. It takes both his medical training and her intuition to solve the mystery of the murder at the Brighton Inn– and the secret of her own troubled past.
Regency CSI Book 1
*A secret meeting. . .the wrong interruption. . .a murder unsolved. Can she rely on a man she has never trusted?*
Book View Cafe is delighted to announce a #Regency CSI tale from Alicia Rasley, MURDER AT THE BRIGHTON INN. Now in #ebook & #paper!
#RegencyCSISeries, #RegencyPeriod, #RegencyRomance, #ForensicMystery, #MysteryDetective #TraditionalRegencyRomance
https://bookviewcafe.com/bvc-announces-murder-at-the-brighton-inn-by-alicia-rasley/
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
*** More plot if you want more teaser--the link goes to a sample, too.
Their secret meeting at the Brighton Inn is interrupted by a man from the past…. and a murder unsolved. Can she rely on a man she has never trusted?
It’s a decade after Napoleon’s defeat, but the war still haunts even the victors. Linked by family and by grief, divided by social class, Russian widow Natasha and navy doctor Matthew have lived for years in mutual distrust. But when she’s suspected of killing a man from her past, she reaches out to Sir Matthew for help. It takes both his medical training and her intuition to solve the mystery of the murder at the Brighton Inn– and the secret of her own troubled past.
Regency CSI Book 1
Well, I spent 40 hours at work
Feb. 24th, 2026 09:16 amconulyAnd I'm getting paid for every last one of them, including the 6 hours when the house slept and so did I. Normally, we're not actually supposed to sleep on an overnight shift - but almost everybody really does, so it's more like "don't get caught" - but c'mon.
For everybody at home, leaving without a replacement is not simply a fireable offense but an actual, factual crime. Also, I'm not sure how I would've gotten to the bus. I mean, it's right outside the door, and buses were running all night, but man, it was brutal out there. We needed a little shoveling, and neither I nor manager wanted to shovel, so we had to wait for the neighbors to get their sidewalks and then sorta patch us into theirs. (The transportation issue is also why I'm not blaming any coworkers who didn't come in. It was impossible. I genuinely don't think that this was a fixable issue, Staten Island got a lot of snow.)
In retrospect, what probably ought to have been done would have had to have been done in advance:
1. Manager should've taken as much discretionary money as possible, agreed to let staff order Chinese or whatever for two, three meals - something that reheats nicely - and offered to pay all our carfare home in advance, and then used that to straight up bribe at least one extra staff member to stay over the storm. With three of us, we could've had one on each floor and also could've more easily arranged sleeping shifts so somebody was awake at all times.
2. She also should've called up the families of those residents who frequently go home for an overnight and asked if they'd take their relatives from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. That's suboptimal for a lot of reasons - there's a reason they all live in a residence instead of with their families! - but it would've lightened the burden on us significantly if we'd had even just our two or three easiest residents away visiting their sisters and brothers.
But we all survived! My replacement actually showed up at midnight last night! But she declined to wake me on the grounds that I wasn't going home at midnight, and she was quite right. And then another staff member showed up this morning, and 90 or 100 minutes later my bus finally showed up. (And yes, I do insist on getting paid for that last hour and a half as well. I wasn't just sitting around, I was doing laundry, and supervising on the basement so that everybody else could handle the upper floors, and walking the guys out to their van so nobody slipped on ice.)
I'm home now, I showered, and I have the rest of the week off, off, off. Yay me!
If this happens again, I'm bringing a change of clothing.
For everybody at home, leaving without a replacement is not simply a fireable offense but an actual, factual crime. Also, I'm not sure how I would've gotten to the bus. I mean, it's right outside the door, and buses were running all night, but man, it was brutal out there. We needed a little shoveling, and neither I nor manager wanted to shovel, so we had to wait for the neighbors to get their sidewalks and then sorta patch us into theirs. (The transportation issue is also why I'm not blaming any coworkers who didn't come in. It was impossible. I genuinely don't think that this was a fixable issue, Staten Island got a lot of snow.)
In retrospect, what probably ought to have been done would have had to have been done in advance:
1. Manager should've taken as much discretionary money as possible, agreed to let staff order Chinese or whatever for two, three meals - something that reheats nicely - and offered to pay all our carfare home in advance, and then used that to straight up bribe at least one extra staff member to stay over the storm. With three of us, we could've had one on each floor and also could've more easily arranged sleeping shifts so somebody was awake at all times.
2. She also should've called up the families of those residents who frequently go home for an overnight and asked if they'd take their relatives from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning. That's suboptimal for a lot of reasons - there's a reason they all live in a residence instead of with their families! - but it would've lightened the burden on us significantly if we'd had even just our two or three easiest residents away visiting their sisters and brothers.
But we all survived! My replacement actually showed up at midnight last night! But she declined to wake me on the grounds that I wasn't going home at midnight, and she was quite right. And then another staff member showed up this morning, and 90 or 100 minutes later my bus finally showed up. (And yes, I do insist on getting paid for that last hour and a half as well. I wasn't just sitting around, I was doing laundry, and supervising on the basement so that everybody else could handle the upper floors, and walking the guys out to their van so nobody slipped on ice.)
I'm home now, I showered, and I have the rest of the week off, off, off. Yay me!
If this happens again, I'm bringing a change of clothing.
The Rift by Walter Jon Williams
Feb. 24th, 2026 09:15 amjames_davis_nicoll
The New Madrid Fault teaches a memorable lesson about the transience of things.
The Rift by Walter Jon Williams
2026.02.24
Feb. 24th, 2026 07:54 amlsandersonICE
A former instructor at an ICE training facility in Georgia spoke before a congressional hearing Monday afternoon and shared what training efforts have looked like as DHS rapidly scales up its number of recruits. “…Even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs,” Ryan Schwank said during the hearing organized by congressional Democrats. Schwank resigned “in protest” less than two weeks ago, CBS News reports, and his testimony “will likely fuel Democrats’ refusal to fund the Department of Homeland Security until the Trump administration agrees to a number of reforms for ICE, including a prohibition on agents wearing masks.” Via MinnPost
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-whistleblower-new-recruits-receiving-defective-training/
A group of Minnesota clergy sued the Department of Homeland Security on Monday for repeatedly blocking their visits to immigration detainees at the Whipple Federal Building. “To be able to receive pastoral care is incredibly important. For individuals to be treated with humanity instead of being treated like inventory,” Irina Vaynerman, the CEO of Groundwork Legal and one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in an interview with MPR News. Via MinnPost
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/02/23/minnesota-clergy-sue-department-of-homeland-security-over-access-to-immigration-detainees ( Read more... )
A former instructor at an ICE training facility in Georgia spoke before a congressional hearing Monday afternoon and shared what training efforts have looked like as DHS rapidly scales up its number of recruits. “…Even in the final days of training, the cadets cannot demonstrate a solid grasp of the tactics or the law required to perform their jobs,” Ryan Schwank said during the hearing organized by congressional Democrats. Schwank resigned “in protest” less than two weeks ago, CBS News reports, and his testimony “will likely fuel Democrats’ refusal to fund the Department of Homeland Security until the Trump administration agrees to a number of reforms for ICE, including a prohibition on agents wearing masks.” Via MinnPost
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-whistleblower-new-recruits-receiving-defective-training/
A group of Minnesota clergy sued the Department of Homeland Security on Monday for repeatedly blocking their visits to immigration detainees at the Whipple Federal Building. “To be able to receive pastoral care is incredibly important. For individuals to be treated with humanity instead of being treated like inventory,” Irina Vaynerman, the CEO of Groundwork Legal and one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in an interview with MPR News. Via MinnPost
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2026/02/23/minnesota-clergy-sue-department-of-homeland-security-over-access-to-immigration-detainees ( Read more... )
Affordable Housing
Feb. 23rd, 2026 11:00 pmysabetwordsmithThe Paperwork Problem Behind the Housing Shortage
In more and more places, the rules technically allow incremental housing. Backyard cottages, accessory dwelling units, and small infill homes are legal on paper; beautiful, glossy images of these homes are shared on city websites and included in planning documents. Yet these homes rarely get built—not because of public opposition or failed rezonings, but because routine procedures treat small homes like major developments.
What we have is not a failure of vision, but one of process.
( Read more... )
In more and more places, the rules technically allow incremental housing. Backyard cottages, accessory dwelling units, and small infill homes are legal on paper; beautiful, glossy images of these homes are shared on city websites and included in planning documents. Yet these homes rarely get built—not because of public opposition or failed rezonings, but because routine procedures treat small homes like major developments.
What we have is not a failure of vision, but one of process.
( Read more... )
Review: "The George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine Cookbook"
Feb. 23rd, 2026 10:14 pmysabetwordsmithThe George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine Cookbook
Paperback – January 1, 2000
by george-foreman-connie-merydith (Author)
( Read more... )
Paperback – January 1, 2000
by george-foreman-connie-merydith (Author)
( Read more... )
Today's Adventures
Feb. 23rd, 2026 08:05 pmysabetwordsmithToday we went up to Champaign-Urbana to celebrate Black History Month by visiting black-owned establishments, along with some other stops.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Why yes, it's more 17th century pornography
Feb. 24th, 2026 12:01 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
alpennia_feedMonday, February 23, 2026 - 16:00
Just two more posts from the group of articles on pornography. Then I'll have a fun series on a primary source, which will tie in with a planned podcast. (Got to get working on that podcast script!)
Major category:
Full citation:
Mourão, Manuela. 1999. “The representation of female desire in early modern pornographic texts, 1660-1745” in Signs, 24: 589-94.
The author notes a lack of attention paid to mid-17th century literary pornography, a telling absence in considerations of gender-related shifts in this era, while also noting that feminist analysis of pornography focuses mostly on contemporary issues and treats the genre as monolithic and inherently misogynistic. [Note: This article was written in the wake of the “pornography wars” of the ‘70s and ‘80s, which provides context for the author’s observation.] This article challenges that simplistic position and tries to examine 17th century pornography as pollical and social critique, as well as titillating entertainment.
While this article is fascinating reading, it touches only slightly on f/f representation, despite the regular presence of sex between women in pornographic works. Rather, the focus is on how female characters in pornographic texts are empowered to value and prioritize their own pleasure, and to convince men of the importance of providing, not just experiencing, pleasure. Even when discussing the “educational,” dialogue-based texts that feature female initiation of a woman into sexual pleasure, the author primarily focuses on how this illustrates the validation of women’s experiences, with little reference to the specifically homoerotic context.
An exception comes in the discussion of Satyra sotadica, when analyzing the rhetorical device of giving lip service to the inability of women to provide mutual sexual pleasure, set against scenarios that clearly contradict that claim. This is framed as one of a range of non-reproductive sexual experiences that “allow readers to begin to imagine a model of female desire.” However it is noted that, even as the central female characters of Satyra sotadica move on to ever more transgressive sex acts, they are depicted as preferring and gaining their most consistent enjoyment from each other. This preferential desire was more threatening to the status quo than isolated same-sex encounters.
The text also depicts voyeurism primarily in the context of women observing women, or women recounting sexual encounters to other women for their enjoyment. Thus even when m/f sex acts are described, the context is providing pleasure for a female audience.
These pornographic texts rarely represent male homoeroticism, much less provide it the tacit endorsement given to lesbian acts. (Keeping in mind that this is the era when a male homoerotic subculture was developing in London and elsewhere.) Thus a male audience is pressured into cross-gender identification in many of the work’s scenarios.
The article concludes by speculating about differences in the social context between 17th century and modern pornography that affect its reception as feminist versus anti-feminist.
Time period:
Event / person:
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double poem day
Feb. 23rd, 2026 05:11 pmursulaTwo of my poems were published today! They're both science-and-technology poems about immigration in the US in the past year. Secondary Filters is up at Strange Horizons, and an audio version of Leaning on the melting point is on the PoetTreeTown Soundcloud.
Bundle of Holding: Mists of Akuma
Feb. 23rd, 2026 02:10 pmjames_davis_nicoll
A bundle for Mists of Akuma, the tabletop roleplaying campaign setting of Eastern fantasy noir steampunk from Storm Bunny Studios for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.
Bundle of Holding: Mists of Akuma
Birdfeeding
Feb. 23rd, 2026 11:38 amysabetwordsmithToday is partly cloudy and cold.
I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows.
I put out water for the birds.
I am done for the night.
I fed the birds. I've seen a flock of sparrows.
I put out water for the birds.
I am done for the night.
Vending February 28: The Indie Book and Comic Expo at The Shirt Factory in Glens Falls!
Feb. 23rd, 2026 11:56 amduckprintspress
The last day of February, Saturday the 28th, come find us and 50+ other upstate New York authors, comic makers, indie publishers, and more at The Shirt Factory in Glens Falls! This awesome event is organized by Black Walnut Books and Beldame Books. You can shop the local small businesses in the building, and find all of us at our tables throughout the hallways. It’s gonna be a great time.
(and I promise I’m not gonna get sick this time if I can possibly help it. 
)