strange_complex

My new book is out! Diary of a Cranky Bookworm has been in the works since 2011, undergoing a long and meandering composition process, and it's a bit of a shock to realize that it's actually out there in the world. Go little book go!

Diary of a Cranky Bookworm cover

May 12, 2012

Dear Diary,

DISASTER. I thought college application essays were bad enough, but now I have to write a summary of my diary??? Horrifying. I’m just a high school senior in a small town in Minnesota, getting up to shenanigans with my friends, retreating to my Treehouse to daydream about slipping into a portal fantasy, and discovering to my horror that my long-time nemesis is maybe, possibly, actually a delight.

And I might be a little bit in love with her.

Which is an unwelcome Realization, as it is sure to cut disgracefully into my reading time. And that’s already in short supply, in between college applications and AP calc and my friend Arielle who always thinks she’s in crisis maybe actually being in crisis for real.

Is that enough of a summary? I sure hope so, because it’s time to meet Georgie for our weekly trip to the library!

julian

I woke up this morning with a really puffy arm, from elbow down to hand, and it felt like I had exercised a lot, but I Had Not, so Calluna and I bundled ourselves off to Urgent Care, and Urgent Care looked at it, said, "Hm, likely not, but Just In Case..." and bundled us off to Emerson Hospital to get an ultrasound, which made me almost fall asleep, which was nice.

And I don't have a blood clot, but I do have sucky blood pressure. Which I knew. So I don't *think* it's an allergic reaction, but I do think it's vein related somehow, so, mystery.

For most of the morning it was gorgeous and sunny and in the 50s, and very springlike, which fits since it's the equinox and the first day of spring, so, happy spring!

Then we got lunch and coffee and started down Route 2 to Arlington to retrieve my wallet, WHICH the Arlington Police in fact found a day or so ago, after I had ordered new everything, (But I can at least get my driver's license for ID purposes. And the wallet, which I like.) *But then*, sitting at a traffic light, we got slammed into on what I thought was my rear end but was actually my passenger side. Passenger side airbag deployed, lots of broken glass also deployed, some of it onto Calluna and a little tiny bit on me. All told, about 6-7 cars were involved, plus Route 2 was closed for like an hour.

I'm very much lacking information about who hit whom and how, but it *seems* as if the person who set the chain reaction going is the one who ended up in front, and rolled over. No one would let me stick around or figure out other people's information, which makes sense because there was like, gas leaking and stuff. Not-very-informative news article.

This time I let them impound it because Calluna needed to get checked a the hospital (same one we just came from!), and I went along for the ride/also to get checked out. (I'm fine; she may have a slight concussion and her neck's hurting.) 'm pretty convinced it's totaled, but unlike when I got run into in Coventry, RI, Concord's only 45 mins or so from me, so I can go retrieve all my Stuff from it Sunday when I also go get my durn wallet.

Happily, my s-i-l loaned me their ancient and venerable Prius so I have wheelz currently.

yourlibrarian

1) My response to the meta prompt at

marchmetamatterschallenge, "Do you think it's more likely that meta would be preserved and read if it were regularly included in other fanwork challenges? Would you take part if you had the chance?"

I do, and that's because I feel that challenges, fests, and other group activities help extend the life of the given fandom. ( Read more... )

2) I watched the Sally Ride documentary and had mixed feelings about it. ( Read more... )

3) I tried out Happiness, a New Zealand comedy about a director returning to his hometown community theater group. I'm liking it more as it goes on, though the way so many characters are turned up to 10 is a little much for me. What I am liking quite a lot are the musical numbers themselves. If more kids learned history like this, they might remember it.

4) I took a survey which explored how much people trust the wisdom of crowds vs AI. I clearly didn't do it the way they had planned. ( Read more... )

5) Delighted by the arrival of spring, wish it didn't feel like the arrival of summer.

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lauradi7dw

I wore my equinox/solstice shirt to tap this morning (it has suns and moons on it).

I wondered why so many school-age kids were in public, not in school, then I realized that Lexington schools were closed for Eid al-Fitr.

I again made soup for Nowruz (which I don't observe otherwise).
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/736850.html
This time I used rice linguine instead of whatever noodle was originally Persian. Still delicious.

I texted a 2024 photo of Arthur's late father (whose birthday this was) about to blow out candles on a cake. Thought of my late friend Linda, also her birthday.

The first BTS album in years (as a whole group) was released today. I planned to go to an actual store and buy a physical CD, but when I called Newbury comics, the goods hadn't arrived, so I listened on youtube. There is a track called No. 29. It is just a bell sound and then silence. Or not silence, maybe my ears aren't good enough to hear the lingering vibrations. It's this bell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_of_King_Seongdeok
Flo and I saw it when we were there in 2024, but didn't hear it. It's almost never rung. That's OK - it's over 1200 years old, and deserves a rest. I presume the producers of the album used an old recording.
https://youtu.be/8wZNqBR8MOw?si=zJorkgu0D58lU22w

On the 18th, the anniversary of my mother's death, Flo's family, my sister and her husband, and I had a zoom gathering. I also (as I have before) wore my mother's blue shirt. Today I was in the supermarket and saw butter pecan ice cream for sale. I think of it as a southern thing, and I have seen the claim online that it has a racist background that I could hardly believe - Black people were not allowed to buy vanilla ice cream so they made up other flavors? At any rate, there it was, and I bought some, thinking of Mama.

thistleingrey

Unbidden, my mother apologized the other day for something that wasn't hers, namely the pressure to stay in college instead of taking a medical withdrawal the term I had surgery. (I would've been allowed to return to school subsequently without penalty, but they wouldn't have pro-rated the fees, of course.) I was off for our one week of spring break, and then I resumed carrying a backpack uphill to class daily.

It wasn't hers because I didn't grant her my choice (and she didn't know enough about how US universities operate to make a good guess about my options). The responsibility is shared unevenly between a dead person and me, and I think my concerns then were valid, given that he tried truncating my undergrad studies the next year---because, he said, not for the first time, I wasn't taking it seriously enough. Dude who had left secondary school unfinished told me I was doing undergrad wrong.

Unlike Sana in Jalaluddin's Detective Aunty, I always knew my mother was good for more than cleaning, cooking, and child-minding. It still took some effort to learn to see her as a person, however.

horrorlitreddit_feed

Posted by /u/Haunting-Net-2426

https://www.reddit.com/r/horrorlit/comments/1rzannr/who_or_what_were_your_favorite_antagonists_in_a/

What was it about them that stood out to you while reading?

submitted by /u/Haunting-Net-2426
[link] [comments]

https://www.reddit.com/r/horrorlit/comments/1rzannr/who_or_what_were_your_favorite_antagonists_in_a/

jordannamorgan posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: Foraging
Author:

jordannamorgan
Fandom: Sentenced to Be a Hero
Characters: Xylo and Teoritta.
Setting: General.
Rating: G.
Length: 862 words.
Summary: Sometimes a compromise is a perfectly acceptable apology.
Notes: Long time no post! I had an inspiration while cooking that just happened to fit the prompt, so here's an opportunistic last-minute submission.

( Foraging )

redbird

It turns out that changing Medicare Advantage plans is not costing me significant money: it looks as though the money I paid for prescriptions at the beginning of the year counts for a calendar-year maximum, even though I switched plans. I ordered another dose of Kesimpta on Wednesday, and they aren't charging me for it. As I said to

cattitude and

adrian_turtle, I'm glad that I could have afforded to pay that twice, but there are plenty of things I'd rather do with the money.

As a side note, this plan will pay for $65 per quarter of over-the-counter medications and some related things. I used part of this quarter's today to order Mucinex, Imodium, and an under-the-tongue digital fever thermometer. I think I can get them to pay for non-emergency transportation to medical appointments, and I should check what dental coverage I have.

kotakuvip_feed

Posted by Kenneth Shepard

https://kotaku.com/warframe-hack-invite-digital-extremes-support-report-2000680686

https://kotaku.com/?p=2000680686

Digital Extremes is telling players not to accept these invites

https://kotaku.com/warframe-hack-invite-digital-extremes-support-report-2000680686

https://kotaku.com/?p=2000680686

jesse_the_k

From that reliable source of journal prompts, thefridayfive

1) What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

Volunteered for WisCon in 2007, clearly LJ was where everything was Happening. Took me a year to figure out the culture. Moved to DW on 1 May 2009.

2) How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

79! Most are evidently dormant. (DW comms never die.)

3) Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

I love the questions and answers at little_details, where writers seek specifics about an infinite assortment of facts: paint manufacturing, historical Chinese tornadoes, NZ slang for three examples.

4) How did you pick your user name?

It’s a riff on my wallet name which I’ve been using it since 2001.

5) If you could change your user name, would you?

Nope.

soemand

I finally dove into John Lennon’s Rock ’n’ Roll today, sparked by a lingering curiosity about his infamous "Lost Weekend." Between the legal chaos and the heartbreaking context recently highlighted in May Pang’s book, the backstory is undeniably more compelling than the music itself.

Frankly, I was unimpressed. While the cover art is iconic—that moody, black-and-white shot of a young John in a Hamburg doorway is pure perfection—the audio doesn't quite match the aesthetic. The heavy-handed Phil Spector production feels claustrophobic, bleeding into and blurring these lean, classic tracks. Worst of all is the over-processing on Lennon’s voice. This 1970s obsession with "slapback" and layering was largely a byproduct of Lennon’s own lack of confidence in his singing—a tragedy, considering the raw power he naturally possessed. It’s a fascinating historical artifact, but the production ultimately smothers the soul of the originals.

horrorlitreddit_feed

Posted by /u/SurrealFishMoment

https://www.reddit.com/r/horrorlit/comments/1rz7exe/is_there_a_word_term_for_fiction_books_that_use/

submitted by /u/SurrealFishMoment
[link] [comments]

https://www.reddit.com/r/horrorlit/comments/1rz7exe/is_there_a_word_term_for_fiction_books_that_use/

highlander_ii posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: Gardening
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: PG-13
Length: short-ish
Content notes: none
Summary: Mozzie - Neal - you know the drill

( Gardening )

nanila

The preceding two weeks of Friday Five questions didn't pique my interest, but this week's are great. Love a bit of meta-blogging. Thank you for the opportunity to navel-gaze.

What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

I started off on LJ in 2001 because everyone was doing it. I created an account and then let it sit for a couple of weeks while I figured out what it was for. I think it was victorine who prodded me into posting regularly and then I just…never stopped.
How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

A few dozen in total. Most of them are dead, the LJ communities in particular. The only one I participate in regularly is DW community awesomeers, because I'm one of the two people who puts up the daily “Just One Thing” posts. I find it easier to write a short comment about my day there than to write up a full post, especially during the work week.
Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

See above. I also enjoy thefridayfive, and I like reading threeforthememories during its annual spate of activity.
How did you pick your user name?

My current username is a play on my actual name. My original LJ name was “lilith” as that's the pseudonym I first adopted when I started interacting with online communities back in the 90s. Eventually I felt I'd outgrown it, and I've been nanila ever since.
If you could change your user name, would you?

That would genuinely be a big decision after more than 15 years of using this one, in a lot more places than DW and LJ. I'd have to do substantive additional navel-gazing to work out what it would be.

bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by Bruce Schneier

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/03/friday-squid-blogging-jumbo-flying-squid-in-the-south-pacific.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71739

The population needs better conservation.

As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.

Blog moderation policy.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/03/friday-squid-blogging-jumbo-flying-squid-in-the-south-pacific.html

https://www.schneier.com/?p=71739

calimac

Is Alysa Liu actually happy to be posing with this police officer?

She's giving the British version of "the finger."

rachelmanija

This spooky ghost story has a central pairing that I feel like I may have requested as an original work: Widow/Female Fake Psychic/Ghost of a Female Bog Body.

My Darling Dreadful Thing is set in the Netherlands in the 1950s, which is a selling point all by itself as I love unusual settings. Roos is a young woman whose abusive fake psychic mother forces her to participate in her fake seances. But though Roos does not communicate with the spirits sought by the desperate, grieving customers, she actually does have a spirit companion, a bog body whom Roos has bound to her and named Ruth.

Roos is delighted when Agnes, a biracial (Indonesian/Dutch) widow, takes her as a companion and spirits her away to her neglected Gothic mansion in the middle of nowhere. The mansion is otherwise occupied only by Agnes's sister-in-law, Willamine, who is dying of tuberculosis, and has a marvellously bizarre Gothic history. Roos falls hard in love with Agnes, with whom she has a surprising amount in common.

But this whole story is being told in retrospect, as a series of interviews Roos is having with a psychiatrist who is trying to determine whether she's mentally fit to stand trial for murder. Something very bad happened at the mansion...

( Read more... )

Very enjoyable, very gothic, very atmospheric. I'm excited to read van Veen's other two books. I looked her up to see if she's actually from the Netherlands (yes) and learned that she's one of a set of non-identical triplet sisters! I don't think I've ever read a book by a triplet before.

kotakuvip_feed

Posted by Kenneth Shepard

https://kotaku.com/last-of-us-hbo-max-lev-actor-kyriana-kratter-yara-2000680678

https://kotaku.com/?p=2000680678

Lev is Abby’s companion throughout the game

https://kotaku.com/last-of-us-hbo-max-lev-actor-kyriana-kratter-yara-2000680678

https://kotaku.com/?p=2000680678

teaotter posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: cycle
Fandom: War of the Worlds 2005 (mods, you can use the generic movie tag)
Challenge: Plant

Summary: Life goes on.

( Read more... )

librarygeek

I've known for years, that even artists don't agree with me on the blue to green color line. What is turquoise or teal to me, seems different than what others say.

So here's a couple of tests:

ismy.blue

xrite.com/hue-test

After a few more people post their own results, I'll add mine.

Current Mood: artistic

Profile

strange_complex

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Page Summary

osprey_archer - Diary of a Cranky Bookworm release
julian - I don't have a blood clot! However, my car is likely dead.
yourlibrarian - Keeping It Together
lauradi7dw - March 20th is a busy day
thistleingrey - also
horrorlitreddit_feed - Who or what were your favorite antagonists in a horror novel that you've ever read?
jordannamorgan in fan_flashworks - Sentenced to Be a Hero: Fic: Foraging
redbird - Medicare advantage, again
kotakuvip_feed - Warframe Players Fear The Game Has Been Hacked After Receiving ‘Nefarious Invites’ [Update]
jesse_the_k - The Friday Five: Journal History
soemand - Lennon’s "Rock ’n’ Roll"
horrorlitreddit_feed - Is there a word / term for fiction books that use fake non-fictional forms, pretending that they're
highlander_ii in fan_flashworks - White Collar : fic : Gardening
nanila - The Friday Five
bruce_schneier_feed - Friday Squid Blogging: Jumbo Flying Squid in the South Pacific
calimac - more than it seems?
rachelmanija - My Darling Dreadful Thing, by Johanna van Veen
kotakuvip_feed - HBO’s The Last Of Us Casts A Cis Actor To Play Its Trans Lead
teaotter in fan_flashworks - War of the Worlds (2005): haiku: cycle
librarygeek - Color perception tests

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Page generated Sunday, 22 March 2026 16:16

The children of the night

Network

Diary of a Cranky Bookworm release

I don't have a blood clot! However, my car is likely dead.

Keeping It Together

March 20th is a busy day

also

Who or what were your favorite antagonists in a horror novel that you've ever read?

Sentenced to Be a Hero: Fic: Foraging

Medicare advantage, again

Warframe Players Fear The Game Has Been Hacked After Receiving ‘Nefarious Invites’ [Update]

The Friday Five: Journal History

Lennon’s "Rock ’n’ Roll"

Is there a word / term for fiction books that use fake non-fictional forms, pretending that they're

White Collar : fic : Gardening

The Friday Five

Friday Squid Blogging: Jumbo Flying Squid in the South Pacific

more than it seems?

My Darling Dreadful Thing, by Johanna van Veen

HBO’s The Last Of Us Casts A Cis Actor To Play Its Trans Lead

War of the Worlds (2005): haiku: cycle

Color perception tests

Profile

January 2026

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