tshuma | Network

Thinking it'd look more professional, I went with a messenger bag instead of a backpack today. As professional as it may have looked, I'm going to go back to the backpack. So much easier for so many things on so many levels, not the least of which is being able to ride a bike. Yes, I know bike messengers do it all the time. No, I'm not a professional bike messenger, and I'm unwilling to try. Especially if I'm already wearing a nice dress.

There wasn't much time to read at work, mostly because I'd been given an actual task to do: sorting through patient folders and setting aside old records to discard. Not as much fun as it'd have been if I'd had an MP3 player with me, and still satisfying to see the piles start to rise, and space in the drawers start to emerge. Where there's space in a drawer, there's objects to be discovered, and found my second office perk. A stain remover stick's not much, but it's still something I could take home with me. The first thing is a large can of cold brew coffee sitting in my fridge, waiting for a morning I need a jolt beyond all meaning.

Current Mood: exanimate
Current Music: nothing now

In almost two months, I've read about 15% of Bernard Spolsky's The Languages of the Jews (slowness is a me-issue). By the 15% point, the book has summarized contemporary usage of Hebrew in Israel, then begun examining historical usage of Hebrew from earliest to more recent. So far, Spolsky tries to assert rather than tuck away his assumptions, which I appreciate. I've read some work by philologists and historical linguists on other language families, and a historical treatment by a sociolinguist who's aware of his strengths is a lovely thing.

( a couple of the book's assumptions and something cool it does with them )

I was so transfixed by the Bittersweets' "Hurtin' Kind" (1967) that I sat in the car in front of my house listening until it was done. The 1965 original is solid, stoner-flavored garage rock with its keyboard stomp and harmonica wail, but the all-female cover has that guitar line like a Shepard tone, the ghostly descant in the vocals, the singer's voice falling off at the end of every verse: it sounds like an out-of-body experience of heartbreak. The outro comes on like a prelude to Patti Smith.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard two songs about mental unwellness within the same couple of hours, actually I'd be swimming in nickels, but I appreciated the contrast of the slow-rolling dread-flashover of Doechii's "Anxiety" (2025) with Marmozets' "Major System Error" (2017) just crashing in at gale force panic attack. Hat-tip to

rushthatspeaks for the former. I must say that I am missing my extinct music blogs much less now that I spend so much time in the car with college radio on.

"Who'll Stand with Us?" (2025) is the most Billy Bragg-like song I have heard from the Dropkick Murphys and a little horrifically timely.

Non-musically, I think I might explode. The curse tablets are not cutting it.

Current Music: Marmozets, "Major System Error"

Ugh

*****************************

( Read more... )

It's been almost 30 years since Tony Blair's landslide victory. And I am still pissed off about the way he & his government dropped the issue of proportional representation as soon as they got into power.

Still pissed off about Tony Blair full-stop. Not sure what I expected - that he'd get elected and then nip into a handy phone booth & come out wearing his 'S for Socialist' t-shirt?

My friend J.R. Dawson is launching their second book, The Lighthouse at the End of the World, and I get to be part of the festivities! We'll be at Moon Palace Books at 6:00 p.m. on July 29, having a lovely conversation about this book and the previous book and other stories and life in general, and you can come join in the fun!

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
There will be no other end of the world,
There will be no other end of the world.

Warsaw, 1944

***

Link

Face of sadness & rage: the public library here has had to cut its streaming services, likely in part because of the destruction of the IMLS, which funded a lot of that. This is a fucking travesty.

It's been too hot to bake, so I picked up a loaf of bread and am basking in the season's first tomato sandwiches. Bliss.

One thing I want to do before the end of the summer is borrow the ice cream maker and dehydrator from the Thing Library; my ice cream quest continues (Dutch Chocolate is perfectly fine but not a standout); blueberrying has not been scheduled but I have agreement that it sounds like fun from the people I want to go with. I am up to H.M.S. Surprise in the Aubreyad and enjoying myself thoroughly.

I love summer so much. I feel like a person.

In a prologue that's very Terry Pratchett-esque without actually being funny, an enormous floating tower appears in England, becomes a 12-hour wonder, and is then forgotten as people have short attention spans. Then thirteen random people suddenly vanish from their lives and appear at the base of the tower, facing the command ASCEND.

I normally love stories about people dealing with inexplicable alien architecture. This was the most boring and unimaginative version of that idea I've ever read. Each level is a death trap based on something in one of their minds - a video game, The Poseidon Adventure, an old home - but less interesting than that sounds. The action was repetitive, the characters were paper-thin, and one, an already-dated influencer, was actively painful to read:

Time to give her the Alpha Male rizzzzzzz, baby!

The ending was, unsurprisingly, also a cliche.

( Read more... )

As Safe As Fear, Beth Cato (Daikajuzine)

In the Shells of Broken Things, A.T. Greenblatt (Clarkesworld)

The Name Ziya, Wen-yi Lee (Reactor)

Barbershops of the Floating City, Angela Liu (Uncanny)

Everyone Keeps Saying Probably, Premee Mohamed (Psychopomp)

Lies From a Roadside Vagabond, Aaron Perry (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For, Cameron Reed (Reactor)

Laser Eyes Ain't Everything, Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots)

Unbeaten, Grace Seybold (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

Unfinished Architectures of the Human-Fae War, Caroline Yoachim (Uncanny)

We're headed off to Mystic tomorrow, to go to an anniversary celebration of Jaws, to see the beluga whales (to have complicated feelings about the ethics of aquariums), to sleep very late because there are no animals to wake me up. I'm mildly anxious, or at the very least, my nigh-permanent anxiety has decided to attach some of itself to this trip, and for all I tell myself overpacking for car trips is a perfectly legitimate way to self-soothe and make myself more comfortable going on trips, I judge myself every time I do.

I have a couple social outreaches pending, two I have to respond to (one to I, which is easy, one to a stranger I met at polyam speed dating, which is not) and two I need to decide if I want to reach out to again. There was one person from polyam speed dating I started to text with that I really liked but after initial contact, our attempts to schedule petered out on her end. maybe because she was trying to let me down easy, maybe because, as stated, she was swamped by helping out with a local pride weekend last weekend. There's a very cool-seeming (in a not-dating way) person on a local discord server, who expressed interest in hanging out, I proposed a couple times to and never heard back.

And maybe it's like how I sometimes go quiet because I don't actually want to talk to that specifically person, but it's so much more likely that I got overwhelmed by the world and my own fears and not wanting to talk to anyone, and then I can't reach out because I believe it's been too long, and I'm really grateful when the other person checks in.

I don't want to feel like I'm bothering anyone, ever, I try to read all the hidden cues, but I also am at least aware on an intellectual level that my traumas lead me to assume the worst of everyone all the time, and when I go looking for a hidden "go away" cue, I'm likely to make one up if I don't find one outright.

When Abundance asked me about going on dates as a result of going to speed dating, I kind of panicked, and firmly refuted the idea I wanted to date, declaring I was at capacity for the number of people I could model and adjust my wants to fit. I don't think I said it that way, I suspect it was something more obviously damaged, but while I remain quite lonely while polysaturated, I wonder if maybe I shouldn't pursue any kind friendships because I might not bring much to the table.

But I'm definitely not saying anything to anyone until we're back from vacation, so I guess we'll see how Monday me feels about all of this.

There are 17 medical professionals in the current House of Representatives. 11 are Republicans. Trying to argue on most issues with the bill is difficult with such a tight deadline, but the one item most people -- including Congressional Representatives -- are reacting to negatively is the closure of Rural and Regional hospitals. This should be a negative for all of the Republicans, but the ones who understand what lack of medical provision can do should be especially ripe to listen, perhaps even be persuaded.

I live in Georgia. Rich McCormick is Georgia District 6, and I live in District 1. But he's more likely to respond to someone from the same state, especially if he has Senate or Gubernatorial ambitions in the future.

The list I found is through The Patients Action Network. If you are in a District with one of these Republican representatives, particularly if they specialize in Emergency or Family medicine, start calling and/or emailing. If you are in the same state, email them and let them know you have a long memory if they're thinking of statewide offices.

In the meantime, send support to the few Republicans in the House who have already voted against it and continue to oppose it. At the very least, let's make them miss their deadline for vacation.

One of those thrillers that splits the narrative between two women—both twenty years old, working at the same grubby motel and living in the same apartment, one in 1982 and the other in 2017 trying to solve the mystery of the first one's disappearance—and their stories run so parallel they're basically interchangeable and you start wondering if maybe the author should have only told the story once. It certainly would have cut down on the amount of clunky exposition and awkward dialogue.

The thrills were not thrilling, but the mystery might have been interesting if we weren't getting it from both ends. As it is, not worth the time.

Contains: References to rape, domestic abuse, and child death; descriptions of dead bodies; ghosts.

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: Hot and wet, not in a good way

Just finished: Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Yeah, I think this is my Hugo best novel pick. It was really good, really timely, fucking gross, and gave me nightmares. It's very much a confluence all of Tchaikovsky's quirks—rather darkly funny narrator, alien minds, and the particular type of resolution he goes for. All of those things happen to work for me quite a bit. This one reminded me quite a bit of Jeff Vandermeer but less nihilistic and I liked the characters more.

Currently reading: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. This was the only novel on the Hugo list where I'd never heard of the author or the book. I'm loving it so far though. It's a murder mystery set in a city where only engineered seawalls stop the things from Attack on Titan from demolishing the place every wet season. A noble is murdered in a mansion (not his mansion) via a tree growing through his body. The person charged with investigating the murder is an old autistic woman who doesn't leave her house so she gets a young man to be her eyes and ears. The murder mystery structure makes it rather different from not just this batch of nominees but the other award lists in general, which is also intriguing.

$radiantfracture: (Orion)$

Of all the things to be grieving right now, this is a weird personal parasocial one. You have been warned.

( Jeremy Greer )

§rf§

It was such a slow first day, midway through the afternoon, I was being paid to sit there and read. It won't be like that every day - not even other days this week - and even if it doesn't get repeated, I can savor having had it for a little while.

So far, it's a front desk job like all front desk jobs: phone calls, emails, appointments, office supplies. People called, I called them back. Documents were scanned into the computer and copies were made. The clients were largely punctual and there's no music playing. While I doubt I can get away with headphones or a radio, there's a fan I may use for white noise to make the periods of sitting around, waiting for more nothing to happen, a little easier to get through without having to fall back on monetary compensation. Even if I got through a large chunk of some reading today.

Though I suppose longhand writing notes are always an option. If I remember to bring the right notebooks tomorrow.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Tupelo Honey - Van Morrison

Rabbit, rabbit! I had to go for my annual physical this afternoon, but I stopped by Porter Square Books afterward to collect a book for my mother and look what was part of their summer sea-display:

I had wanted to write about so many queer films for June, but the month disappeared. Fortunately before we ran out of the formal observance of Pride,

rushthatspeaks and I made it to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Querelle (1982) at the Coolidge. It was adapted from the 1947 novel by Jean Genet, but I have never seen anything onscreen that more resembled the novels of Chip Delany. Meant in sincere compliment, it is one of the sweatiest films I have ever seen. It looks like it smells like a porno theater. Its antihero is straight out of Tom of Finland with his sailor's tight, tight white trousers and muscular cleavage revealed by the barest excuse for an A-shirt, his boyish, chiseled, louche face under his insolently cocked bachi in the sullen, enticing haze that never varies from the sodium-smoke of just after sunset or just before dawn, a perpetual cruising hour. The sea-wall of its fantasized Brest is studded with stone phalli, anatomically complete with slit and balls. All graffiti in town is dicks. The chanteuse of the dive bar sings Wilde like Dietrich, but some of the construction workers with their buff hard hats are playing video games while the naval lieutenant who pines for Querelle records his poetically criminal obsessions into a portable tape recorder. The bare-chested, leather-vested cop at the bar actually is a cop outside of it, where he looks just as fetishistic in his fedora and black leather trenchcoat. Every interaction between men looks like a negotiation or a seduction whether it is one or not, although on some level it always is, regardless of the no-homo excuses manufactured to allow their bodies to meet. Constantly, metaphysically, literally, this movie fucks. Its hothouse, bathhouse sexuality must have come in just under the cutting wire of AIDS. I have no idea what it would offer a viewer with no sexual or aesthetic interest in men except its philosophy, although as my husband notes the philosophy is actually quite good, deconstructing its hard masc signifiers as much as it gets off on them, dissolving in and out of the words and ultimately the life of Genet; the theatricality of its interlocked sets and swelteringly flamboyant lighting would look entirely natural on the stage. It quotes Plutarch and stages a hand job that without a glimpse of cock would have caused mass apoplexies in the Breen office. (Send it back in time, please.) It was my introduction to Fassbinder and if I had seen it as an adolescent, I imagine it would have had much the same effect as Tanith Lee. It was introduced by the series programmer wearing leather in its honor and a T-shirt for Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising (1963). It made a superb date movie.

Current Music: Les Cowboys Fringants, "Marine marchande"

When you get married they ask you to write an inscription. Think of it as being like taking out a subscription.
You should sign it with a feeling of elation and hope it won’t end with a cancellation.

Michael Rosen

I wish I could remember where I found this piece of doggerel, it wasn't in a book. Guardian maybe? Past me did a copy-and-paste into commonplace notepad (but at least I noted the author's name)

And yeah, I still like the sentiment, good wedding poem.

I could barely do the morning chores I usually feel neutral-to-positive about this morning -- I open the curtains, unload the dishwasher, make a pot of tea, get breakfast for myself... Things that are always the same and always different. It can be very grounding.

Today I wasn't especially tired and I wasn't in pain or anything, I just didn't want to. I couldn't imagine doing the first tiniest step.

This is a sign of burnout. I need a break. I was telling my counselor this evening that a break for me has to be somewhere away from my house, because my house is full of reminders of chores I need to do, things that get on my nerves, etc. I am not good at relaxing, but when I can do it it doesn't tend to happen at home.

I did an okay amount of work today but near the end of the day I was in this focus group about "inclusion" in our workplace. These things can be kinda therapeutic but by the end I was thinking that we keep having surveys and stuff like this, where we tell some nice external person all our woes and we're assured that the feedback is anonymized into themes that cannot identify us, but all that means is our specific nuanced articulations all get flattened in to "we all have good colleagues who care about their work but the executive team keep letting us down," and we're going to get the same kind of response from said executive team about how impressed they are at everyone's honesty and how committed they are to addressing these themes, and then we'll do this all over again in a year or two.

I felt really tired by the end of it, which wasn't great because it was almost time for my first counseling session in almost a month. A real "let me explain, no there is too much let me sum up" kind of situation.

My counseling happens on the phone and usually in my bedroom; I normally come right back downstairs in search of dinner, but this time I just lay on my bed for something ridiculous like an hour. I kept trying to get up and go back downstairs but again: so many steps. And it was relatively peaceful just lying there.

Since I had to come downstairs and try to eat dinner I'm feeling more depersonalization, so maybe all of this has been more stressful or triggery than I realized. I hate feeling like this; is probably the most uncomfortable symptom of my anxiety/depression.

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tshuma

March 2018

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Page generated Jul. 4th, 2025 10:11 pm

It's just an ordinary day.

And, it's all your state of mind.

Network

Second day in.

current reading (spolsky 1/?)

You think one plus seven seven seven makes two

Bleeding

(no subject)

JR Dawson launch party!

A Song on the End of the World by Czeslaw Milosz

(no subject)

The Way Up is Death, by Dan Hanks

Stories I've liked, 2nd quarter 2025

(no subject)

Ideas to block the current bill

The Sun Down Motel, by Simone St. James

Drive by

Reading Wednesday

Jeremy Greer

July the First.

J'm'installe sur le rivage pour te voir mon gros gars t'éloigner vers le large

Michael Rosen

I'm tense and nervous and I can't relax

Profile

March 2018

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