Just One Thing (09 August 2026)
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awesomeersIt's challenge time!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
ladyherenyaExcluding the novelette, here are three novels that got me thinking about the desire to inhabit books and that also contained whole passages that I deemed quote-worthy.
• The Astral Library by Kate Quinn (audiobook): At first this contemporary fantasy seems like a departure from Quinn’s recent historical fiction, like The Briar Club. Alix is having a spectacularly bad day, including losing a job, being locked out of her bank account and needing a new place to live, when she opens a door in the Boston Public Library and finds herself in a completely different library.
The Astral Library offers sanctuary to desperate booklovers, allowing them the opportunity to live inside a book as a minor character – provided said book is in the public domain. And from this point it becomes increasingly clear that Quinn is an author of historical fiction and she has found ways to incorporate her research into even this fantasy. (I am not complaining, in case it wasn’t clear.)
I really enjoyed this story! ( “Libraries and librarians are gatekeepers, protectors of the written word. If you aren’t allowed to copy, reproduce, quote, or print an author’s book without legal permission, why on earth would you be allowed to live in it?” | “I am positive this particular situation is not covered by copyright law,” I stated. )
• A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine: A moment to check my Libby history – it turns out that I first put a hold on this book in 2020. I borrowed it three different times in 2023 and twice in 2025, and each time I returned it, unopened. I was too busy reading other things, or I decided I didn’t have the time, or the headspace, for this sort of science-fiction. I didn’t remember anything about it or why I’d wanted to read it.
This time when I borrowed it, I actually forced myself to open it – and forced myself to read beyond the first few pages – it did not take me very long to realise why I had put a hold on it in the first place. While some aspects of this book are not quite my cup of tea, in all other respects this is absolutely the kind of science-fiction I like. At times I was almost giddy reading this.
Mahit is sent to the City, the “heart-planet and capital of the Teixcalaanli Empire”, as the new ambassador from Lsel Station. She doesn’t know what happened to the previous ambassador – is he dead, disgraced or disappeared? According to her station’s customs, Mahit has been implanted with an imago-machine of her predecessor but this record of Yskandr Aghavn’s memory is fifteen years out of date.
( I was fascinated by the ramifications of the imago technology. I wasn’t surprised to find an exploration of empire and of the problems of empire but I wasn’t expecting the exploration of having grown up outside the empire with a fascination for the empire’s literature )
( ‘It was hard for HER to wrap her mind around—the very idea of Teixcalaan not being permanent, irrevocable, eternal. And she was a barbarian, a foreign particle, just a thing that loved (did she? Did she still?) the Empire’s literature and culture, it wasn’t home; it had never been the shape of the world for her like it must be for Three Seagrass, only the shape that distorted the world out of true, the warp of heavy mass pulling at the fabric of space.’ )
• “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells: This novelette is part of the Murderbot series and takes place after Artificial Condition, but instead of focusing on Murderbot, it is about humans who connected to the university research ship ART aka Perihelion.
This was interesting – maybe it would be more so if I had reread Network Effect, but by the end, I would have been happy to see it continue as a longer story.
• Mrs Tim Gets a Job (1947) by D.E. Stevenson: This is set after the war and I think it must be 1946 as it’s six years after Mrs Tim Carries On. Hester’s husband is stationed in Egypt, her son is away at school and her twelve-year-old daughter is about to start boarding school too. One of Hester’s friends suggests that Hester should get a job and puts her in touch with a Scottish woman who has turned her family home into a hotel. Tocher House is near Ryddleton, the fictional Scottish town in which various of Stevenson’s other novels are set (like Celia’s House or Anna and Her Daughters).
D.E. Stevenson is one of those authors whose books make me think I’d like to visit the place described therein, even though I know that the reality of living there would perhaps be less comfortable than the books suggest. As with the previous books, I really enjoyed spending time in Hester’s company and appreciated her observations and her perspicacity.
( ‘I examine my own reaction to reports from scholastic establishments (reports upon the attainments and behaviour of my offspring) and am bound to admit that I have usually received them with a grain of salt.’ )
• The Astral Library by Kate Quinn (audiobook): At first this contemporary fantasy seems like a departure from Quinn’s recent historical fiction, like The Briar Club. Alix is having a spectacularly bad day, including losing a job, being locked out of her bank account and needing a new place to live, when she opens a door in the Boston Public Library and finds herself in a completely different library.
The Astral Library offers sanctuary to desperate booklovers, allowing them the opportunity to live inside a book as a minor character – provided said book is in the public domain. And from this point it becomes increasingly clear that Quinn is an author of historical fiction and she has found ways to incorporate her research into even this fantasy. (I am not complaining, in case it wasn’t clear.)
I really enjoyed this story! ( “Libraries and librarians are gatekeepers, protectors of the written word. If you aren’t allowed to copy, reproduce, quote, or print an author’s book without legal permission, why on earth would you be allowed to live in it?” | “I am positive this particular situation is not covered by copyright law,” I stated. )
• A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine: A moment to check my Libby history – it turns out that I first put a hold on this book in 2020. I borrowed it three different times in 2023 and twice in 2025, and each time I returned it, unopened. I was too busy reading other things, or I decided I didn’t have the time, or the headspace, for this sort of science-fiction. I didn’t remember anything about it or why I’d wanted to read it.
This time when I borrowed it, I actually forced myself to open it – and forced myself to read beyond the first few pages – it did not take me very long to realise why I had put a hold on it in the first place. While some aspects of this book are not quite my cup of tea, in all other respects this is absolutely the kind of science-fiction I like. At times I was almost giddy reading this.
Mahit is sent to the City, the “heart-planet and capital of the Teixcalaanli Empire”, as the new ambassador from Lsel Station. She doesn’t know what happened to the previous ambassador – is he dead, disgraced or disappeared? According to her station’s customs, Mahit has been implanted with an imago-machine of her predecessor but this record of Yskandr Aghavn’s memory is fifteen years out of date.
( I was fascinated by the ramifications of the imago technology. I wasn’t surprised to find an exploration of empire and of the problems of empire but I wasn’t expecting the exploration of having grown up outside the empire with a fascination for the empire’s literature )
( ‘It was hard for HER to wrap her mind around—the very idea of Teixcalaan not being permanent, irrevocable, eternal. And she was a barbarian, a foreign particle, just a thing that loved (did she? Did she still?) the Empire’s literature and culture, it wasn’t home; it had never been the shape of the world for her like it must be for Three Seagrass, only the shape that distorted the world out of true, the warp of heavy mass pulling at the fabric of space.’ )
• “Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells: This novelette is part of the Murderbot series and takes place after Artificial Condition, but instead of focusing on Murderbot, it is about humans who connected to the university research ship ART aka Perihelion.
This was interesting – maybe it would be more so if I had reread Network Effect, but by the end, I would have been happy to see it continue as a longer story.
• Mrs Tim Gets a Job (1947) by D.E. Stevenson: This is set after the war and I think it must be 1946 as it’s six years after Mrs Tim Carries On. Hester’s husband is stationed in Egypt, her son is away at school and her twelve-year-old daughter is about to start boarding school too. One of Hester’s friends suggests that Hester should get a job and puts her in touch with a Scottish woman who has turned her family home into a hotel. Tocher House is near Ryddleton, the fictional Scottish town in which various of Stevenson’s other novels are set (like Celia’s House or Anna and Her Daughters).
D.E. Stevenson is one of those authors whose books make me think I’d like to visit the place described therein, even though I know that the reality of living there would perhaps be less comfortable than the books suggest. As with the previous books, I really enjoyed spending time in Hester’s company and appreciated her observations and her perspicacity.
( ‘I examine my own reaction to reports from scholastic establishments (reports upon the attainments and behaviour of my offspring) and am bound to admit that I have usually received them with a grain of salt.’ )
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[#306 | Heartbreak] Challenge Post
Jul. 9th, 2026 01:33fanweeklymod posting in fandomweekly| Challenge 306: HEARTBREAK |
n. crushing grief, anguish, or distress Sometimes, things don’t work out. The romance doesn’t last, or their plans for the future fall apart. The hero doesn’t get there in time, no matter how hard they try. Sometimes, all the magic or science in the world can’t stop something bad from happening. Not all heartbreaks are permanent! Sometimes it’s still possible to fix things. But often, there’s no way out except to just live through it. Write a story about heartbreak. If your submission features this line, it will earn an extra point to be tallied in voting! |
| Challenge ends Monday, July 13 at 9:00PM EST. • Post submissions as new entries using the template in the profile • Tag this week's entries as: [#] submission, 306 – heartbreak • If you have questions about this challenge, please ask them here |
[#305 | Fireworks] Results Post
Jul. 9th, 2026 01:32fanweeklymod posting in fandomweeklyHere are this week's votes tallied, and below the cut are our winners for Challenge #305 – Fireworks!
( This week's finalists are... )
Total Challenge Words Written: 2200
Congratulations to both of you, and thank you to everyone who took the time to cast their votes!autobotscoutriella will be making this week’s banners, so keep an eye out for those next week.
You may now post your Challenge 305 entries to any additional communities, blogs, archives or sites as you'd like! We also have a FandomWeekly AO3 Collection if you'd like to add your stories there!
( This week's finalists are... )
Total Challenge Words Written: 2200
Congratulations to both of you, and thank you to everyone who took the time to cast their votes!
autobotscoutriella will be making this week’s banners, so keep an eye out for those next week.You may now post your Challenge 305 entries to any additional communities, blogs, archives or sites as you'd like! We also have a FandomWeekly AO3 Collection if you'd like to add your stories there!
(no subject)
Jul. 9th, 2026 00:24southernmedicineWhy does time get away from me so quickly? How?
It's already been a week since my last update, and not by design.
Let's see. The 4th of July was fun, despite it being a holiday I high-key despise. We had two friends over and we made delicious homemade meatball subs. We watched two movies: Uncle Sam, which is one of those movies that is deliberately awful for the sake of entertainment, and another called The Bay which was actually pretty good, unironically.
It's been storming a lot, and I love that. Unfortunately it's also been a Biblical plague out there, because of mayflies. I knew about mayflies. I did not know they would blanket everything by the millions to the point where I literally could not get outside and once I figured out how, the only way to take the dog to pee was to load her into my car, exit the garage, and drive up the street to a place where there was no light to let her go.
The other day, while walking the dog, we found a baby bird on the ground. Above in the tree, the parent birds were very upset. We decided to go back home, get some supplies and a step ladder, and come back to try and help. We fashioned a makeshift nest out of a small box and some old shoelaces and tied it up in the tree, full of leaves, then placed the baby inside of it. It seemed to calm the parents, and we were glad that the nestling wouldn't just sit there in the grass helpless and vulnerable.
I just finished the final season of The Bear.
fandomgiftbasket is in full swing again! I'm excited to take a gander at the spreadsheet and see what I can do.
It's already been a week since my last update, and not by design.
Let's see. The 4th of July was fun, despite it being a holiday I high-key despise. We had two friends over and we made delicious homemade meatball subs. We watched two movies: Uncle Sam, which is one of those movies that is deliberately awful for the sake of entertainment, and another called The Bay which was actually pretty good, unironically.
It's been storming a lot, and I love that. Unfortunately it's also been a Biblical plague out there, because of mayflies. I knew about mayflies. I did not know they would blanket everything by the millions to the point where I literally could not get outside and once I figured out how, the only way to take the dog to pee was to load her into my car, exit the garage, and drive up the street to a place where there was no light to let her go.
The other day, while walking the dog, we found a baby bird on the ground. Above in the tree, the parent birds were very upset. We decided to go back home, get some supplies and a step ladder, and come back to try and help. We fashioned a makeshift nest out of a small box and some old shoelaces and tied it up in the tree, full of leaves, then placed the baby inside of it. It seemed to calm the parents, and we were glad that the nestling wouldn't just sit there in the grass helpless and vulnerable.
I just finished the final season of The Bear.
fandomgiftbasket is in full swing again! I'm excited to take a gander at the spreadsheet and see what I can do.
We tried another way we never came back from
Jul. 8th, 2026 23:45sovayFollowing the successful conclusion of one of spatch's appointments for a change, we returned to Belle Isle Seafood and this time it was a beautiful gold-tilting evening and we could seat ourselves at one of the weather-polished open-air tables and a server came by with her pad of guest checks and for what we estimate to have been the first time in six and a quarter years we ate at a restaurant together. I got a plate of smelts piled just as high and sweetly sanded and ate them down to the fried tips of their tails and the delicate bones. Rob assures me that his baked haddock was as flakily rich as it looked under its crumbs and juiced lemon. We had duly observed the warning sign about the seagulls, but mostly we saw sparrows leaning like acrobats through the diamonds of the chain-link and a common tern that made an air-slicing swoop into the water after a small silver struggle of fish. I twisted corners of napkins into earplugs because of the planes roaring out of the peach-haze over Logan. The serpentine water was full of the shivered reflections of boats and the piers built green shadows under their Plimsoll lines. When we came home by way of Revere Beach, the sun doubled itself fierily in the salt marsh off North Shore Road. Even more so now, the sea feels like a lifeline. Everything feels like choking and it is so important to have reasons to breathe.
spatch's appointments for a change, we returned to Belle Isle Seafood and this time it was a beautiful gold-tilting evening and we could seat ourselves at one of the weather-polished open-air tables and a server came by with her pad of guest checks and for what we estimate to have been the first time in six and a quarter years we ate at a restaurant together. I got a plate of smelts piled just as high and sweetly sanded and ate them down to the fried tips of their tails and the delicate bones. Rob assures me that his baked haddock was as flakily rich as it looked under its crumbs and juiced lemon. We had duly observed the warning sign about the seagulls, but mostly we saw sparrows leaning like acrobats through the diamonds of the chain-link and a common tern that made an air-slicing swoop into the water after a small silver struggle of fish. I twisted corners of napkins into earplugs because of the planes roaring out of the peach-haze over Logan. The serpentine water was full of the shivered reflections of boats and the piers built green shadows under their Plimsoll lines. When we came home by way of Revere Beach, the sun doubled itself fierily in the salt marsh off North Shore Road. Even more so now, the sea feels like a lifeline. Everything feels like choking and it is so important to have reasons to breathe.
(no subject)
Jul. 9th, 2026 14:03thawreckaI love how much the character 酒 looks like, wow, look at this bottle of stuff, like it's putting spirit fingers around a bottle of booze
movies: Leviticus, Rose of Nevada
Jul. 8th, 2026 20:44snickficLeviticus (2026). Two queer teen boys in a homophobic Australian backwater are stalked by a demon that appears to each one as the other, driving them apart.
This stars Joe Bird, the little brother in Talk to Me. He was great then and he's great here, and his and co-star Stacy Clausen's chemistry is fantastic. This movie only works because they're so good together as two fumbling kids who don't really understand themselves or each other, who can't trust each other because the other guy might be a demon, but who, it turns out, can't trust anyone else in their lives either. Betrayal is the big theme here: by trusted adults, religion, the person you're into, and yourself.
The conversion therapy metaphor is very obvious, which isn't necessarily bad, but I did feel that the movie wasn't sure what to do with it once it had introduced it. Like yes, now you (or the appearance of you) are dangerous to each other, so now what? I wanted it to give me more. The movie feels like it plateaus in the last act, neither deepening the themes nor escalating the tension but just hitting a lot of the same beats until things finally resolve.
However, the actual character work is good, IMO. Both kids are complicated and make realistically bad choices, but they also both keep trying with one another. There's a really great scene where love interest Ryan uses the word dickhead about five times, and it's honestly really sweet in context. The cinematography was also good; I really felt the kind of down-and-out exhaustion of the industrial small town.
Overall, even though it didn't fire on all cylinders for me, it's definitely a worthwhile watch if teen boys in love in a horror setting sound like your jam.
--
Rose of Nevada (2026). Directed by Mark Jenkin, who also made Enys Men, this is about two guys in an impoverished Cornish fishing town who take a job aboard a lost and resurfaced fishing boat, which takes them back in time. The guy who's been sleeping rough suddenly finds he has a wife and kid; the guy who took the job to support his family no longer has one, because they're back in the present day.
This movie is largely an Experience (tm) rather than a story as such. It seems like there is some actual plot/lore underpinning, but Jenkin is not that interested in explaining what it is. We spend a LOT of time on a fishing boat. The captain might be fae, or the boat might stuck in a time loop, or... who can say.
Mostly what Jenkin is interested in is making a movie that feels old, full of fuzziness and tactile impressions of things. I'm told the camera can only store about twelve seconds of footage at a time, so everything is a quick cut, and for whatever reason he didn't mic any of it, so all the sound happened in post and all the spoken dialogue was dubbed in, like an old giallo film or something.
I got out of this and was like well that was an experience I guess, but with time I feel like I might want to watch it again. Maybe I can make sense of more things this time.
This stars Joe Bird, the little brother in Talk to Me. He was great then and he's great here, and his and co-star Stacy Clausen's chemistry is fantastic. This movie only works because they're so good together as two fumbling kids who don't really understand themselves or each other, who can't trust each other because the other guy might be a demon, but who, it turns out, can't trust anyone else in their lives either. Betrayal is the big theme here: by trusted adults, religion, the person you're into, and yourself.
The conversion therapy metaphor is very obvious, which isn't necessarily bad, but I did feel that the movie wasn't sure what to do with it once it had introduced it. Like yes, now you (or the appearance of you) are dangerous to each other, so now what? I wanted it to give me more. The movie feels like it plateaus in the last act, neither deepening the themes nor escalating the tension but just hitting a lot of the same beats until things finally resolve.
However, the actual character work is good, IMO. Both kids are complicated and make realistically bad choices, but they also both keep trying with one another. There's a really great scene where love interest Ryan uses the word dickhead about five times, and it's honestly really sweet in context. The cinematography was also good; I really felt the kind of down-and-out exhaustion of the industrial small town.
Overall, even though it didn't fire on all cylinders for me, it's definitely a worthwhile watch if teen boys in love in a horror setting sound like your jam.
--
Rose of Nevada (2026). Directed by Mark Jenkin, who also made Enys Men, this is about two guys in an impoverished Cornish fishing town who take a job aboard a lost and resurfaced fishing boat, which takes them back in time. The guy who's been sleeping rough suddenly finds he has a wife and kid; the guy who took the job to support his family no longer has one, because they're back in the present day.
This movie is largely an Experience (tm) rather than a story as such. It seems like there is some actual plot/lore underpinning, but Jenkin is not that interested in explaining what it is. We spend a LOT of time on a fishing boat. The captain might be fae, or the boat might stuck in a time loop, or... who can say.
Mostly what Jenkin is interested in is making a movie that feels old, full of fuzziness and tactile impressions of things. I'm told the camera can only store about twelve seconds of footage at a time, so everything is a quick cut, and for whatever reason he didn't mic any of it, so all the sound happened in post and all the spoken dialogue was dubbed in, like an old giallo film or something.
I got out of this and was like well that was an experience I guess, but with time I feel like I might want to watch it again. Maybe I can make sense of more things this time.
Daily Happiness
Jul. 8th, 2026 20:14torachan1. They got the AC fixed at work! The guy was already working on it when I got there and he seemed to get it fixed pretty quickly. Everyone else in the office was very excited about it not being so hot, too.
2. I finished up the second of the Star Wars movie poster puzzles.
These really are fun little puzzles, though I will be glad to move on to something a bit more challenging once these are done.
3. Carla arrived safe and sound in Wisconsin this afternoon. Unfortunately the AC was not working well on the train, which is not what you want for an almost two day journey during the height of summer, but at least it wasn't fully off, just spotty in the rooms while still being nice and cool in the hallway. And now she's in the hot, muggy midwest, but at least her aunt and uncle's house has AC.
4. There is a new yuzu green tea from my favorite bottled green tea brand (Itoen's Oi Ocha series) and it's on sale at work through today. I only noticed it today at lunch when I bought a bottle for myself, so I bought a case (12 bottles) before I went home, so I could have them to bring for lunch. When I just buy a drink here or there I don't always use my employee discount as I always use the self-checkout and don't always have my badge with me to scan, but if I make a larger purchase I always make sure to, so I got the employee discount (which is only 10% but better than nothing) plus the sale price.
5. Jasper loves hanging out on this box in my closet lately. If I can't find him, this is always the first place I look!
2. I finished up the second of the Star Wars movie poster puzzles.
These really are fun little puzzles, though I will be glad to move on to something a bit more challenging once these are done.
3. Carla arrived safe and sound in Wisconsin this afternoon. Unfortunately the AC was not working well on the train, which is not what you want for an almost two day journey during the height of summer, but at least it wasn't fully off, just spotty in the rooms while still being nice and cool in the hallway. And now she's in the hot, muggy midwest, but at least her aunt and uncle's house has AC.
4. There is a new yuzu green tea from my favorite bottled green tea brand (Itoen's Oi Ocha series) and it's on sale at work through today. I only noticed it today at lunch when I bought a bottle for myself, so I bought a case (12 bottles) before I went home, so I could have them to bring for lunch. When I just buy a drink here or there I don't always use my employee discount as I always use the self-checkout and don't always have my badge with me to scan, but if I make a larger purchase I always make sure to, so I got the employee discount (which is only 10% but better than nothing) plus the sale price.
5. Jasper loves hanging out on this box in my closet lately. If I can't find him, this is always the first place I look!
Daily Check-In
Jul. 8th, 2026 20:20starwatcher posting in fandom_checkinThis is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Wednesday July 08, to midnight on Thursday, July 09. (8pm Eastern Time).
Poll #34813 Daily Check-in
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 8
How are you doing?
I am OK.
5 (62.5%)
I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
3 (37.5%)
I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)
How many other humans live with you?
I am living single.
2 (25.0%)
One other person.
4 (50.0%)
More than one other person.
2 (25.0%)
<sigh> My apologies, folks. I simply forgot what day it was. 😢
Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
eagle therapy.
Jul. 8th, 2026 18:28serafaerybeen a busy productive chore day. gotta werk all day tomorrow so that'll be hard, but then I get to daaaaance hopefully. If I can muster the energy. I've been soooooooooooooo lethargic lately. Pushing through and doing things anyway but it's HARD erf.
Tyler and I had a really really nice hike yesterday at the coast. He seems a little off-kilter but mostly okay. sigh. I am trying really hard to be a better friend to him. He asks for so little.
I still want to try to get laundry done tonight, and henna my hair, and maybe do some housework or write some cards. I want to buy some special order things I am running low on, but I'll save groceries for tomorrow after werk. I have a deal for mushroom chocolates, should I go for it? I haven't had any in over a year.
Despite low energy I keep taking all of my supplements and keep endlessly batting away my depression. It never lets up, I just have to keep whacking at it. Kind of like how you never run out of laundry or dishes or weeds.
Scheduled my mammogram, I still have to look for a new PCP, look for a new dermatologist, get a new veterinarian for Avalanche, schedule a colonoscopy, get vaccinated for shingles, and a bajillion other health care things I keep putting off.
Josh wants to tackle wingspan tonight and I just want to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Avalanche has been outside all day and she's sooooooooo happy, it's the cutest. Her special venison raw cat food came back in stock and she is soooooooooo happy about that too. She was eating the salmon/chicken flavor but she doesn't like it half as much as the venison.
the eagles are doing wonderfully. what a gift.
the weather is perfect. the sky is so beautiful. what a gift.
I've been eating yummy nutritious (and a few naughty nibbles) food all day, what a gift.
my husband is the best. my car still runs. pumpkins are blooming.
group therapy continues to be weird and slightly uncomfortable. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It is family reunion season and I already go through a period of feeling alienated and invisible and locked out of something fundamentally human and important listening to people talk about it at work, now I have to listen to it in group, too. ugh.
I never had anything like that. I never met any aunts or knew any cousins, except for some distant ones once long ago in LA who never responded the last several times I tried to contact them. We don't have family gatherings or markers or support of any kind. (One of my dad's nieces still sends me happy birthday notes on fb, she found me after dad died, she's really sweet. But I've never met her and I don't know any of her family and her parents are long gone. She didn't meet my dad, either. But she's still sweet.) There are no estates or "probates" or whatever that even is because nobody has any money. No memorials or funerals (except for the one memorial I created for my mom in 2022, that made me so so so sick from the stress of it that I ended up catching covid). my dad's ashes were dumped from a plastic bag into a nameless stream by a stoned woman (widow technically, dad remarried when he got diagnosed with terminal lung cancer to a girlfriend) who also dumped her cremated cats at the same time. that's as much of a ceremony as anyone gets around here. If you're lucky. I feel like we are human versions of street rats who could get dumped in a ditch and nobody would notice, care, or remember. So, I get a little triggered listening to people talk about family reunions, I guess. Even my therapist will be gone next week for one. I'm glad they have family. Very glad for them. But it sure does make me feel more alone. Josh's family doesn't do stuff like that either. Nobody marked his grandmother's passing in any way whatsoever. They didn't even talk about it. I guess it doesn't matter. I guess it's more realistic about the real meaninglessness of my own existence. But it still is kind of painful.
watching the eagles on their nest makes it feel less so.
Tyler and I had a really really nice hike yesterday at the coast. He seems a little off-kilter but mostly okay. sigh. I am trying really hard to be a better friend to him. He asks for so little.
I still want to try to get laundry done tonight, and henna my hair, and maybe do some housework or write some cards. I want to buy some special order things I am running low on, but I'll save groceries for tomorrow after werk. I have a deal for mushroom chocolates, should I go for it? I haven't had any in over a year.
Despite low energy I keep taking all of my supplements and keep endlessly batting away my depression. It never lets up, I just have to keep whacking at it. Kind of like how you never run out of laundry or dishes or weeds.
Scheduled my mammogram, I still have to look for a new PCP, look for a new dermatologist, get a new veterinarian for Avalanche, schedule a colonoscopy, get vaccinated for shingles, and a bajillion other health care things I keep putting off.
Josh wants to tackle wingspan tonight and I just want to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Avalanche has been outside all day and she's sooooooooo happy, it's the cutest. Her special venison raw cat food came back in stock and she is soooooooooo happy about that too. She was eating the salmon/chicken flavor but she doesn't like it half as much as the venison.
the eagles are doing wonderfully. what a gift.
the weather is perfect. the sky is so beautiful. what a gift.
I've been eating yummy nutritious (and a few naughty nibbles) food all day, what a gift.
my husband is the best. my car still runs. pumpkins are blooming.
group therapy continues to be weird and slightly uncomfortable. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It is family reunion season and I already go through a period of feeling alienated and invisible and locked out of something fundamentally human and important listening to people talk about it at work, now I have to listen to it in group, too. ugh.
I never had anything like that. I never met any aunts or knew any cousins, except for some distant ones once long ago in LA who never responded the last several times I tried to contact them. We don't have family gatherings or markers or support of any kind. (One of my dad's nieces still sends me happy birthday notes on fb, she found me after dad died, she's really sweet. But I've never met her and I don't know any of her family and her parents are long gone. She didn't meet my dad, either. But she's still sweet.) There are no estates or "probates" or whatever that even is because nobody has any money. No memorials or funerals (except for the one memorial I created for my mom in 2022, that made me so so so sick from the stress of it that I ended up catching covid). my dad's ashes were dumped from a plastic bag into a nameless stream by a stoned woman (widow technically, dad remarried when he got diagnosed with terminal lung cancer to a girlfriend) who also dumped her cremated cats at the same time. that's as much of a ceremony as anyone gets around here. If you're lucky. I feel like we are human versions of street rats who could get dumped in a ditch and nobody would notice, care, or remember. So, I get a little triggered listening to people talk about family reunions, I guess. Even my therapist will be gone next week for one. I'm glad they have family. Very glad for them. But it sure does make me feel more alone. Josh's family doesn't do stuff like that either. Nobody marked his grandmother's passing in any way whatsoever. They didn't even talk about it. I guess it doesn't matter. I guess it's more realistic about the real meaninglessness of my own existence. But it still is kind of painful.
watching the eagles on their nest makes it feel less so.
