Libby

This is true!

Had been having some mildly concerning health stuff, went to GP, and found that my ferritin had dropped to 9, which apparently means my body is barely storing iron anymore? Like, I’m relieved it’s an easy fix, but damn. Am being made to take gigantic iron pills for the foreseeable.

The main illustration from the “Bebe” chapter of “Sideways Stories from Wayside School.” Bebe is drawing furiously while Calvin watches.

Smart people have already written about the many problems of generative AI better than I could, but I’ll tell you this about the thing I know: writing is about writing. It’s an action. A verb. It’s what we do. I write, you write, they write. Skip that and you’re not a writer.

Hart clearly never read her Louis Sachar as a kid. Bebe, Calvin, and Mrs. Jewls would have sorted this confusion out for her.

wayside-school.fandom.com/wiki/Bebe_(b...

I do appreciate that the Olympic audience booed Vance, but I did think the Americans would know better than to chant "USA" this time around.

Well, my Germans are looking resplendent in snuggies and bucket hats. I'll take some comfort in that.

Feeling some real bitterness watching the Parade of Nations. Hard to see athletes so proud to represent their country in a time when my own deserves only disdain.

It’s maybe not my *least* favorite song, but it’s the one that comes to mind: I am an Adele hater. Do not play “Someone Like You” anywhere near me. It’s whiny and it’s long. (I don’t know if it’s actually long, but it sure feels that way.)

In this book, a monstrously greedy king demands a quilt from an artisan who gives them only to those in need. The only way he can get one is to give everything he owns away, so that he earns one by having nothing.

I’ve been thinking about it since the Nobel fiasco started.

There’s a book I read as a child called “The Quiltmaker’s Gift.” I’d like to get an extremely patient preschool teacher to read it to the Fascist Toddler, and then to all the billionaires that surround him. I know they have no appreciation for either metaphor or shame, but still.

Possibly, if the town brigade had stuck to a purely verbal form of attack, all might yet have been peace.; Words can be overlooked. But tomatoes cannot. No man of spirit can bear to be pelted with overripe tomatoes for any length of time without feeling that if the thing goes on much longer he will be reluctantly compelled to take steps.

Thanks, Wodehouse.

I’m a heavy AO3 reader and I don’t even look at the tags first, I look at the summary and then open it to read the first few lines and then maybe look at tags. Trope lists for pro books make my eyes cross.

THINGS TO REMEMBER: 1) YOU ARE A SOUL WEARING A HUMAN DISGUISE 2) NOBODY KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON

Just writing up my to do list today

Doomscrolling as a kind of self-defeating preparation for returning to the States tomorrow. Yep, I recognize this feeling. (I’m still hyped to see people. And to eat some good Tex-Mex. But my God, what has my city become.)

I am so excited to fly back to DC and see my people… and I am so nervous about being back in the US for six weeks.

Like, I already feel like I’ve lost my tolerance for what it’s like to live with the horrors all the time. (I’m moving back next winter; I can’t afford to lose that tolerance.)

No AI could ever hope to recreate Oma. Not her delighted reaction to nude tarot cards. Not her love of giving peanuts to squirrels that then tried to break into her house. Not the way she always mispronounced the word “gingerale” in her thick German accent.

So, no, because I can’t.

Other recent readings: “Cuckoo Song” by Frances Hardinge. The first few chapters were so tense I had to skip ahead just to reassure myself (and it’s a middle-grade!)

I loved this one because any other author would have made Pen the main character. But the book’s a masterpiece because she isn’t.

Ista paused, exhaled. Murmured, "So I pray the gods may hear even me, and let my whispered yes tower above my shouted no and mount all the way to their fivefold realm. As I would be heard, so I hear you."

This bit in particular, I’m going to be sitting with for a while.

Finally sat down and read “Paladin of Souls,” and it is every bit as good as everyone said it was.

Try copyrighting the Fair Folk, I dare you.

I know I’m actually kind of acclimating when my go-to pronunciation has shifted from “Wait-rose” to “WAY-trose.” I hope the Brits are proud of me.

I know a lot of people think they're ineffective as a result, that you don't win with big happy protest events, but I think it's actually really important for people who feel lost and alone with everything that's happening to this country to be able to go and see that they aren't alone at all

I have been to two No Kings protests and they are filled with normies and people with funny signs and families and they are just the most wholesome protests imaginable

that's all people are going to see, man - their friends and neighbors out there saying we don't want this

The “No Kings” logo. A crown crossed out on a yellow background.

Very happy to have found several No Kings protests in the UK that I would be able to go to. Now I just need to pick one. Channeling ALL my far-away American terror into this, thanks.

I have seen no better theory.

Apples in a box! The cardboard sign says “APPLES… DELICIOUS EATERS! Please help yourselves 😊.”

These apple boxes can be found everywhere right now. It’s definitely in my top ten of favorite things about England in the fall. I guess a lot of people have apple trees, and they offer the extras to anyone who wants them? And I sure do take them up on it.

I had a really bucolic, fairytale-ish sort of day reading in the countryside (I’ve been trying to find ways to destress; this qualified), and as I was walking through a field eating locally grown apples, I happened to look at the news. Everything is so surreal these days.

Have the courage of your convictions for Christ sakes.