Thank you so, so much for reading my work. It's not often I have anything to put out there, out of being slow or too self conscious, or going through very expected strings of rejections. Your words made my day.
every time i look at instagram, i feel like im the only adult who doesn't know how to make money
Thank you again, it was such an interesting book I wouldn't have found otherwise. I wasn't totally on board with the way Veronica is written, but the criminal case was compelling enough that I'd read number 2.
Books I read in February: 1) "Little Bosses Everywhere" by Bridget Read. One of the slow-burners I started in January. An in-depth coverage of MLM culture and its ties with conservative (and eve far-right) ideology, which are, frankly, frightening. Highly recommended. 2) "The Fragility of Bodies" by Sergio Olguín. Picked up from a recommendation on Bluesky, it reminded me how much I love the subtle, eerie darkness of South-American mysteries. Not a perfect book (the protagonist is very clearly a woman written by a man, if you catch my drift), but the criminal case at the heart of it is haunting and well-developed. 3) "We Could Be Rats" by Emily Austin. I've seen few authors portray mental issues as realistically as Austin, which is absolutely a credit to her. This book was a little too disjointed in terms of narration and point of view for my taste - "Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead" was far superior in terms of craft.
February reads on @thestorygraph.com: Scams! Haunting Argentinian mysteries! Young women going through mental health breakdowns! I'm all about the joyous reads, you see. Little Bosses Everywhere is a 10/10 recommendation, if you're into MLM deep dives or getting angry about the state of the world.
Happy birthday! Glad to hear it's without that particular worry. Hope plenty of very nice things have been coming your way today.
I can hardly believe this, but I submitted 5 pictures with 5 minutes to spare!
Bonus fun fact: had to take a detour to reach the cafe because the nearest park exit was blocked by a filming crew, and rumour has it they're shooting Mobland season 2. If true, once it's out I'll have seen 3 TV series with scenes filmed in my area. Almost feels like getting my own 15 mins of fame!
I'm sitting outside my favourite neighbourhood cafe with a flat white and an ebook, and the lady behind me in the queue had a gorgeous gorgeous dog, and for the first time today, I feel I'm onto something that might ease the knot of anxiety I've had in my stomach over something silly I think I did.
Yes! You are submitting! And whatever the outcome, I'd love to see your choices. I'm tempted to look through my folders too, now, though the theme sounds challenging for someone who hardly ever photographs people.
Thank you, Kathy, so kind of you to share! I still remember the feedback the piece got on your forum, and it was a big part of what encouraged me to keep submitting this over the years.
Sharp and beautiful? Well, that just made my day. Thank you so much for publishing my work - that in fact has made my month.
That's exactly how my job hunt is going. Options: take a big pay cut crossing my fingers for better environment, or hold on to a salary that pays my mortgage until I'm laid off. The roles that match what I make demand AI-wrangling skills I just don't believe companies put any thought into defining.
Hi! Happy Saturday! Have some microfiction by yours truly, courtesy of @templeinacity.bsky.social.
I started this a lifetime ago in a @kathyfish.bsky.social Flash Fiction Extravaganza - so pleased it's found a home. Will share a photo of the OTT Christmas lights that inspired it if you ask nicely.
What really got me is that the stripes look so fake I had to wonder whether they were added in post-production via MS Paint!
I feel I know people who'd actually go for the in-home climbing wall, but the Austin Powers bedroom takes the cake on this one, excellent choice, it'll be seared in my brain for the rest of the day.
In Italy we have Fat Tuesday rather than Pancake Day, and I always really miss the typical sweet treats, which are very difficult to make at home. But you couldn't pay me to spend February in the North-East of Italy! This month's miserable UK weather is nothing compared to the norm where I grew up.
We're having pancakes on Saturday because the house's designated Pancake Chef wasn't keen on making them for breakfast on a working day. Lent? What is that? Oh no, no way!
Kate Bush appreciation thread. And here's the working link to the Mojo article: www.mojo4music.com/articles/the...
This crosses over with my old gripes about math: teaching quality (I had mocking teachers, curriculum-obsessed teachers and disengaged teachers, none prioritising curiosity over test scores) and that other pervasive '00s sentiment ("STEM degrees are for boys"). Probably lucky I have no time to rant.
Also, love that I learned some of my English through '90s dance songs on the radio, but since many of the singers are also Italian, their fake foreign accent is so muddled I still can't work out all the lyrics.
On that note, as I contain multitudes, I'll switch to my '00s punk-rock playlist now.
The "cool" girls in my village were into house or techno, and sneaking into dodgy afternoon discos on Sundays. You wouldn't catch me dead there, but going to the volleyball girls' birthday parties and dancing to their mixtapes with them got me called a weirdo way less often. Early life lesson, that.
(this is where I make it clear that I don't miss a thing about becoming a teenager in Middle-Of-Nowhere, Northern Italy in the late '90s - the near absence of ways to find "my" music and "my" people was just the tip of the shit iceberg)
When I say I contain multitudes, one of them is totally a teenager with omnivorous taste in music, whose party trick was bonding with all sorts of people through whatever genre they liked. Which was fun, though now I know what code-switching is, I have to wonder what was at the root of it really.
I seem to have entered a '90s Eurodance rabbit hole. Blaming it on watching the figure skating and drinking coffee after 3pm today. BUT! The autoplay suggestions I'm getting are so spot-on, 13-year-old me might as well have recorded them herself off that long defunct local radio station she loved.
Wouldn't that be funny! We fostered two of her siblings before her but she does have two other sisters we never met.
A calico cat basking in the sun on her cat tree. Yes, this picture is from last year, I have noticed the miserable weather outside today.
What a beautiful calico pattern! I love it when the feed serendipitously leads me to photos of cats that look like my Lena.
Freshly baked white chocolate and miso cookies, ready to be taste tested for breakfast (spoiler: they passed the quality check and are ready to share). The recipe is Benjamin's Ebuehi's (available online, I halved the chocolate quantity and added some hazelnuts I had at home). This is only my second time eating miso cookies: the first time was at a friend's house some ten years ago, and I've been keeping an eye out for them in London bakeries ever since, but never found them anywhere. About time I took matters in my own hands. Also, with a jar of miso in the fridge, perhaps I can try something new from my savoury recipe stash soon, too.
Given time, I always do the things I say I'll do. "Things" being the white chocolate & miso cookies I made for a baking club I'm going to later; "time" being easily 10 years since the first and only time I ate one before. Forget inbox zero: recipe stash zero is the challenge (it'll never happen).
Your post just inspired me to look up the author, and this book was ready to borrow on Libby, so here I am starting it today. Thanks for sharing!
My mother is no stranger to lying about pasta. "Let's have a quick pasta", she'd say, only for the water to be nowhere near boiling 20 minutes later.
Moving to London changed my life for many reasons, but the very first one? Learning all kitchens have kettles. Who's making a quick pasta now, Mum?
"The boxes are lying" has to be the most perfect sentence I'll read today.
And you know who's also lying? My mother, who follows the timing on the box and then insists it's still too raw. I was last summer years old when she admitted the problem is her, not me - she actually likes it overcooked.
