phineasjones

1. I got the final confirmation from the tax guy so I was able to sign in the app and have those sent off. I get really antsy leaving it so close to the deadline so that’s a weight off my mind to have it all done finally.

2. After yesterday’s rain, today was warm and very sunny. And muggy. Ugh! And since it was Saturday, the crowds were out in force, but we still have a really nice day today at DisneySea. Tomorrow we are doing non-Disney stuff and then going back to the park on Monday which should be both less crowded and not as hot and sunny, so fingers crossed.

cimorene

I think a clock that chimed every hour would be really helpful to me. It would be like having an alarm that goes off once an hour, but totally benign, instead of making me jump like an alarm. It would be nicer if the church belltower did - belltower chimes are the best ones, I think. Meanwhile lots of clocks don't even tick now, which I find very annoying, because I like to listen for the ticks and count them.

musesfool

Today's poem:

The Other Woman

as I picture her
she has no basil
no cumin
no sun-hardened hyssop
nor sage around her eyes

she never catnips
but laughs comfrey
tansy with a primula smile

as I think of her
she's angelica
foxglove and jasmine
somewhat peppermint
not letting you see
all her saffron at once

one day I’ll meet her
that rue woman
that wild indigo teasel
somewhere neutral
free of woodruff and of dropwort
some summer savory

she's the nose
set to lavender
eye full of sesame
ear ringing rosemary

she's wind
through wild thyme

--Twyla M. Hansen

*

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Mets pregame

oliviacirce

Fady Joudah is a Houston-based poet (and doctor) who I first learned about through his translations of Mahmoud Darwish—one of which I may post later in the month—and then because Brazos Bookstore, one of our favorite independent bookstores in town, always tries to highlight local authors. I picked up a copy of Joudah's 2024 poetry collection last year and was thinking about posting a couple of different poems, but then I read this earlier one on Poetry Foundation and couldn't stop thinking about it, so here we are. Still on the subject of the moon, sort of.

( Moon Grass Rain )

torachan

We had a nice, relatively relaxing day today that kept us mostly out of the rain. There actually wasn’t much rain most of the day, just sprinkling off and on, though it did start coming down harder here and there in the evening.

We went to a little train museum not too far from the resort area that required taking a train and then a bus, and I’ve never taken a bus in Japan before so that was fun. We also ate at a family restaurant (Gusto), which is another thing I’ve never done before. This one was very high tech. You order off a tablet (which we’ve seen a fair amount of), the food comes to you by robot, and then it’s self-checkout at the register. There was also a Book Off right nearby so we got some books and CDs, and then since it wasn’t raining right then, instead of getting on the bus where we got off, we walked several stops towards our destination before getting on, which got us a nice little neighborhood walk in a less touristy area than where we’ve mainly been so far. In the evening we went to Ikspiari for dinner and more shopping. I definitely feel like we’re getting the hang of Ikspiari now. It was soooooo confusing last time and I stil hate the layout, but we were able to navigate without too much trouble this time. Now we’re back at the hotel early and can just relax before our big DisneySea day tomorrow.

oliviacirce

Here is another poem about the moon. Also, cats.

( How the full moon wakes you )

musesfool

Today's poem, for which I had to turn on the rich text editor and still couldn't get the spacing quite right sigh:

Seaside Improvisation
by Richard Siken

I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don't
want them, so I take them back
and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists. The yard is dark,
the tomatoes are next to the whitewashed wall,
the book on the table is about Spain,
the windows are painted shut.
Tonight you're thinking of cities under crowns
of snow and I stare at you like I'm looking through a window,
counting birds.
You wanted happiness, I can't blame you for that,
and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy
but tell me
you love this, tell me you're not miserable.
You do the math, you expect the trouble.
The seaside town. The electric fence.
Draw a circle with a piece of chalk. Imagine standing in a constant cone
of light. Imagine surrender. Imagine being useless.
A stone on the path means the tea's not ready,
a stone in the hand means somebody's angry, the stone inside you still
hasn't hit bottom.

*

Current Mood: coughing, still

torachan

1. I took my laundry over to the hotel next door this morning and since last time I used their app to do it, I did not take any cash. We’ll, you can still use the app, but there’s terrible cell reception in the hotel, especially back by the laundry room, and last time I didn’t notice it because I was using hotel Wi-Fi, but I’m not actually a guest at that hotel, so no Wi-Fi for me. I just about got the wash going after a long struggle, but unlike the machines at the last two hotels, this is not a combo so I had to go back to do the dryer separately and foolishly did not take cash that time either, and I couldn’t even text Carla to bring me cash since the reception was that bad. Instead I took the damp laundry back to the hotel to hang dry. Thankfully we had enough clean clothes to wear today (though we really were down to the last few items as we packed light with the intention of doing laundry multiple times) and when we came back to the hotel in the afternoon, I took the few things that were still damp and did a 15 minute run in the dryer (with cash) to finish them off.

2. Today was our Disneyland day and it was pretty much perfect. Despite the delay of doing laundry in the morning, I was able to get over there and line up before opening and Carla joined me soon after. We were in the park by a few minutes after 9 and got an express pass for Beaty and the Beast right away, plus one for Monsters Inc a little later. Last time we hadn’t managed to get the pass for Monsters Inc and while I went on it myself Carla wasn’t up to the hour+ line, so I wanted to make sure we got that this time. By the time we were able to put in for another pass, they were sold out for Winnie the Pooh, but we were able to do it with the regular line later in the evening when the wait was down to 20 minutes. It was a bit sunny in the morning but not hot, and windy in the afternoon and evening but not too cold.

3. We were planning on DisneySea tomorrow, but it’s supposed to rain all day (though based on the total inches, probably only sprinkling) and the park is closing at 6pm, which means we wouldn’t be able to go back to the hotel and rest then come back for dinner, which is our preferred method. So instead we will go on Saturday, which will be more crowded, and do other stuff tomorrow.

4. Finally heard back from the tax preparer and we will be getting a decent refund!

china_shop

Previous poll review
In The whooshing sound as they go past poll, 25.6% of respondents said they generally find deadlines motivating, 28.2% want to hide from them, and 64.1% find them manageable in moderation or under specific circumstances. In ticky-boxes, sunbeams dancing brightly on leaves in the breeze came second to hugs, 66.7% to 87.2%. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
Still listening to The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley, read by Sid Sagar. There's an interesting tension between my being 90% sure the POV character is unreliable, and 10% aware that he is familiar with the ancient world and its mores, while I am not, so what if all his wrong interpretations are right?

I'm up to the second-draft section of Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell, and I am somewhat despairing. In brief, he recommends: discovery write your first draft for raw material, reverse engineer an outline from it, fix the outline, then write the second draft from the revised outline from scratch. Which makes sense if a) you need to discover your characters and worldbuilding along with your story, and b) you can write from an outline. But when I've tried this in the past, I kept editing the outline until it was a completely different story from my first draft. Also, I don't want to rewrite my fics from scratch, and even if I managed to, I'd end up with a differently not-working draft and have to do it all over again. Tl;dr, there is a lot of good stuff in Refuse to Be Done, but it's not the magic bullet for my writing woes that I'd hoped. Oh well.

Maybe I should give the method a try for something shorter.

Kdramas
I'm currently watching four Kdramas, woohoo!

Andrew and I are watching Phantom Lawyer, which is goofy and kind. I would probably enjoy it even more if I hadn't recently listened to a bunch of episodes of Movie Briefs podcast; now I'm very conscious of the rampant unethical lawyering (your client being guilty does not mean you get to turn evidence over to the police, omg; you can't lie to a client about their case to spare their feelings; etc). Anyway, I'm kind of hoping it doesn't develop a romance; I like the leads as a platonic odd couple.

Pru and I are still watching Love Scout. More this evening. (And I showed my brother episode 1 on Friday, though he chatted through it; is that how normal people watch TV?)

I slipped and fell into a rewatch of You're Beautiful, the 2009 "nun undercover as her twin brother in a boyband" drama that was my gateway drug. It is still ridiculous and adorable. Neither of the leads has two braincells to rub together, and I love them. The second lead is still annoying.

spoilers

The lead is arrogant, impatient, and rude, but when he accidentally overhears his new bandmate talking about keeping the fact she's a woman a secret, he immediately confronts her, demands that she go to the manager and confess, and generally engages with her as an (annoying, accident-prone) person. Eventually he ends up helping her and conspiring to keep her secret. Meanwhile, the second lead guesses from Mi-nam's physical attributes that she's female (which reads very differently to me in 2026 than it did to my clueless younger self!). He doesn't tell her he's guessed, just goes out of his way to befriend her and invite her confidence, and he gradually gets jealous of the first lead. He's "nice", but I do not like him.

Hwang Tae-kyeong's reluctant self-embroilment in the deception makes me laugh a lot,and I'm permanently earwormed with the theme song. I feel like in a modern remake, a) the other boyband members would be more androgynous looking too, and b) the management would be all over everything. A.N. Entertainment is one ramshackle operation.

I also started Lovely Runner, starring Kim Hye-yoon (Extraordinary You) as a Kpop megafan whose idol dies by suicide. She time-travels back 15 years to when they were both in school and proceeds to be extremely in-his-face, leveraging her encyclopaedic fan knowledge of him to try and change the course of history. Kim Hye-yoon is always delightful, so I'm enjoying it so far, but it's early days.

Other TV
The Pitt. Ahhhh!!

Rooster (why do writers on TV never actually sit down and write? or read, for that matter?), Scrubs, Cheers, and about ten minutes of DTF [location] which was enough to know it's not for me.

Fringe and Bluey with my sister.

spoilers for Fringe

We've reached the terrible part of Fringe. Wow, I'd forgotten how bad it gets. I mean, why wouldn't you have one of your lead characters choose to give up her entire personality, life history, and all of her friendships and social and family connections for romantic love? I mean, none of that meant anything much, right? Wow. /o\)

Paper Girls and Connections with Andrew and Ed.

Audio entertainment
Bill and Frank's Guilt-Free Pleasures' episode "Crowded House: 'Don't Dream It's Over'". A bunch of relistening to RNZ podcast Conversations with my Immigrant Parents as research for a fic I'm not writing.

Online life
520 Day assignments are out, woohoo! The Slo-Mo Guardian rewatch is kicking back into gear this weekend. I've started a new browser window (window #4) where I'm camping out; it currently only has thirteen tabs. I'm failing at keeping up with Dreamwidth, but hopeful that will change now Writers' Hour is at 8am instead of 10am.

Writing/making things
The last week has mostly been modding, squaring away my Yuletide fic for when I get back to it, making notes for a thing that I'm not going to write after all, and alibi sentences. But sometime in the next couple of days, I'm going to start my 520 Day assignment. This is my resolve face.

Life/health/mental state things
( Cut for length. )

House
I am optimistic that my kitchen windows will be re-puttied next week sometime, weather permitting.

Link dump
Why Greenland is an Island and Australia is a Continent (via

starandrea) | Losing Self-Control (5-minute short film about gay love in a Big Brother-like dystopia (with happy ending), which is actually an official music video for Minute Taker; via

mific) | Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names (via

tinny) | London Writers' Salon are having a free 24-Hour Sprint 7pm 24th to 7pm 25th April UK time (you just go to whichever hours you want) | Migaku language-learning app (via

tinny) (note to self: come back to this next time I'm in a language-learning phase).

Good things
Hair! My 520 Day assignment! Kdramas! Social occasions (I guess). My sister mended my favourite slouching-around-at-home trousers and made me Brazilian cheese bread. Halle and Andrew and the fact it's not raining or cold.

Poll #34458 Stoic hurt/comfort

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39

View Respondents

When dealing with stoic characters, how do you prefer your hurt/comfort?

View Answers

stoic character stoically/reluctantly/awkwardly receiving comfort
18 (46.2%)

stoic character stoically/reluctantly/awkwardly providing comfort
18 (46.2%)

anyone and everyone hurt!
14 (35.9%)

anyone and everyone comforting!
13 (33.3%)

it depends
12 (30.8%)

none of my characters are stoic/reserved/clams
0 (0.0%)

all of my characters are stoic/reserved/clams
1 (2.6%)

I'm not into hurt/comfort
3 (7.7%)

other / it's more complicated than that
5 (12.8%)

ticky-box of having multiple browser windows open right now
21 (53.8%)

ticky-box full of story structure is my nemesis
11 (28.2%)

ticky-box full of a red panda circus troupe performing for grapes
14 (35.9%)

ticky-box of appreciating being able to breathe through your nose
25 (64.1%)

ticky-box full of hugs
31 (79.5%)

musesfool

I was taken with the need to do an Orphan Black rewatch and there's so much I forgot! Tatiana Maslany is so good, which you all knew, and the supporting cast is *chef's kiss*. It makes very few missteps, and watching in marathon fashion means even storylines I disliked originally (CASTOR) work much better. It's on Netflix, so if you are in the mood and don't mind the grossout body horror, it's a good watch.

And this poem seemed fitting:

This Poem Will Get Me On Some Kind of Watchlist
by Jessie Lochrie

I'm dancing at a nightclub
when someone behind me
places a hand on my shoulder.
I assume it's a friend until
the hand slides down my chest.

Boiling with gin and rage
I grab his wrist, whip around,
and punch him in the jaw.
It doesn't land well—
I've never hit anyone before—
so I punch him in the gut,
just for good measure.

I look at him doubled over and spit
Never do that to a woman again,
and then I run. My friends laugh in the cab:
You punched a guy!
but I sit silent and burning.

In Crown Heights, in Union Square,
in South Williamsburg: men leer and
whistle and smack their lips.
I ignore them, or flip them off,
or tell them I'm married.

When they purr que guapa
I yell callate and they all laugh.
I can't tell if they're laughing at me
for being a white girl speaking bad
Spanish, or at the idea that anything
I say might actually shut them up.

In my impotent rage I dream of a world
where I am not public property. I would
start wars for my right to walk down a street
unafraid, a thousand wars for a single day
in which my body belongs to me alone.
An army raised against each cat call. A bullet
for every man who ever told me to smile.

***

Current Mood: still coughing
Current Music: Mets losing to the Dbacks

sineala

What I Just Finished Reading

KD Casey, Breakout Year: A m/m baseball romance that the author apparently wrote in response to feedback saying her books had too many Jewish characters, so now everyone in this book is Jewish, which is clearly the best way to respond to bigoted criticism. A+. Loved that. I wish I could say the same about the rest of the book, which is a fake-dating second-chance romance where only one of the main characters currently plays baseball, which means there's way less baseball than in her other books, which made it kind of meh for me because the author is really amazing at putting baseball as an integral part of her baseball romances (sometimes it's hard to find sports romances where the author seems like they actually care about the sport) so unfortunately I spent most of the book hoping for more baseball in the baseball book and not getting it.

What I'm Reading Now

Comics Wednesday!

( Iron Man #4 )

What I'm Reading Next

No idea. But, hey, maybe I can read books now? Here's hoping, anyway.

Current Mood: full

oliviacirce

I asked my wife how many poems about the moon I was allowed to post this week, and she said "all of them?" So we may have a week or so of moon poems, for obvious reasons. Since I missed yesterday, here are two.

( Why Are Your Poems So Dark? )

*

( Bless the Moon )

torachan

1. We took the Shinkansen today! I had originally planned for us to get in to Tokyo late morning or midday and then we could get lockers for the luggage and do some stuff in the city, but since we had a long amusement park day yesterday and another one tomorrow, we decided this would be a more take it easy day, so while we did get lockers and do a little bit of stuff and then took the train to Maihama, it wasn’t a whole long day of tramping around. Once in Maihama, we got dinner at Ikspiari and then took the monorail to our hotel.

2. Our hotel is nice, better than the first one, but not as nice as the Park Front Hotel at USJ. We’ll be here for seven nights, so I’m glad it’s not as tiny as the Respire, but they don’t have a coin laundry! I tried to do laundry this morning before we left, but the Park Front just has one machine per floor and it was in use, so I have a bunch of shirts and underwear/socks to wash. I went downstairs and asked if they really don’t have a laundry room and were apologetic and said we could use the one at the hotel next door, so I will be doing that tomorrow (it’s the hotel we stayed at last year, so I am familiar with the layout and the laundry room, and maybe even still have the app).

3. Disneyland tomorrow! It’s exciting just to be here in Maihama. Oh, and the monorail we took tonight had the DisneySea 25th anniversary wrap on it! The official anniversary celebration doesn’t start until the 15th, which is the day we leave, but they might already have some other decorations up and possibly even some merch out. Fingers crossed!

sineala

Today in Fandom Complaints, I wish to preface my complaint by saying that since, obviously, I am enjoying watching the entire back catalog of Dimension 20 and also Campaign 4 of Critical Role, that clearly I enjoy watching Brennan Lee Mulligan's DMing.

However, I think it's really, deeply weird, that for a guy who clearly defines himself by being a big nerd who knows a lot of stuff about stuff (and, I mean, sure, that's great, I am also a big nerd) -- anyway, that basically everything I have ever seen him say about Latin is totally wrong. If there's Latin, it's wrong. (If there's Greek, it's also often wrong, but there's less Greek, at least. Still bewildered at CR C4 featuring him defining "dithyramb" essentially as "amphitheater" and then telling the audience to "look it up." I... did? It doesn't mean that.)

Yes, I was annoyed while watching D20 Fantasy High that he consistently stresses "Avernus" wrong -- the Latin stress rule is not hard, I promise -- but I told myself that, okay, maybe it's a D&D thing and D&D decided to pronounce the name of their thing differently from the real thing. Sure. Fine. Okay. I was annoyed that D20 Unsleeping City S2 decided to make the cornerstone of its season the quotation "Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo" because then that meant I had to listen to it be mispronounced and mistranslated and taken out of context a lot -- and because it's one of

lysimache's favorite bits of the Aeneid it's also one of my favorite bits of the Aeneid. But everyone takes this one out of context a lot now (it's part of the 9/11 memorial, for some weird reason) and I guess I can accept that people don't know it's about Being Gay and Doing War Crimes and that's just how it is.

But, okay, so, I am coming up on the end of the season Mice & Murder, which is basically "The Wind in the Willows but what if we just murdered a bunch of animals at Toad Hall and then a fox version of Sherlock Holmes had to solve the mystery" which I assume is not what the book is actually about although I haven't read it. Anyway, here in the penultimate episode, the characters are given a clue to a passcode, and the clue is in Latin, and they are asked if any of their characters know Latin.

The clue is "mors est in gloria." He repeats this, like, two or three times, and he's clearly reading it off something -- it is definitely the thing he intended to say. (The closed captions spell it wrong, but that is absolutely the thing he is saying. He pronounces it very carefully.)

Because I have clearly put several points into Knowing Latin while building my real life human character my first thought is "well, that's a weird clue." Like, what the hell? "Death is in glory?" Okay, sure. Whatever. It didn't occur to me that it could have been meant to say something else. I just thought it was weird on purpose.

Then he tells the player whose character would definitely know Latin (the character is a vicar) what this is supposed to mean, privately, and they excitedly report to the rest of the group that it means "glory in death."

No. No, it does not.

It's four words. Come on. How do you get this wrong? How do you get this exactly backwards? How do you look at the phrase "in gloria" that you have constructed and decide that you nailed it and that that for sure means "in death?"

I don't expect most pop culture to get Latin right, but, like... I expect better of Pop Culture For Total Nerds, I guess. I would really like D20 to do better. Please. For me. Get someone to check your Latin.

(I also did not buy the two Game Changer pins with Latin mottos from the episode where they gave them Latin mottos because both of them had bad Latin to varying degrees. One of them was bad to a degree where it was like "okay, this contains words that obviously are Not Actual Words and therefore makes very little sense, what the fuck" and the other one was only bad to the degree of "if you know what it is trying to say, you can see how they got there, but this really only means that in Medieval and not Classical Latin." Which, eh. I guess clearly it could be worse.)

Current Mood: exhausted

green

omg I swear this is what did it. My life has changed over the past week, I feel like a new person, and I feel crazy about it because I swear it's because I splurged on a new soft throw blanket. Something about touching that blanket healed me, y'all. It's a UGG Euphoria blanket, and I spent like 60 bucks on it. I didn't really have the money but I splurged anyway, and it is SO SOFT, and it does something to my brain. Like it tickles my brain when I rub my hands on it. This needs to be studied.

I doubt new improved me will last forever, but I'm doing what I can while I'm feeling this way.

Believe me, I know how crazy it sounds that a blanket has 'cured' my depression.

Current Mood: cheerful

musesfool

Today's poem:

An Epistemology of Planets
by Annie Dillard

Mercury

A brook runs on all night;
a book, shut,
still tells itself a story.
So you, out of thought,
you, forgotten Mercury,
still spin and spend the circles of your fury.

Venus

Evenings, after I've eaten
dessert, you rise, you wear
your barest, shining skin.

Later, mornings, you up
and do it again.

Do you think I've forgotten so soon?

Earth

Planets, alone, and grieving,
look who you're running with:
look at our baby-blue planet the earth
and all of the people, waving.

Mars

Mars keeps its dignity,
its networks of cool.
Certain photographs reveal
an air of longing, still.

Jupiter

Swings, spattered
by shadows of Jovian moons:
Io, Europa, Callisto,
the giant, Ganymede.
Companionable, each

nonetheless keeps

the perfect arc of his distance.

Saturn

         It is to you I come in my dream,
you, dancing alone in the dark, light-heart,
       asleep inside your spinning hat!

Uranus

Uranus, cold face,
old rock and ice,
remembers a song
and sings it once
round the dark, twice.

Neptune

Banished, Neptune,
luminous, green,
sleeps, and dreams of the sun.
Awake, he holds her round
as tight as he can.

Pluto

Spends twenty years
wandering in Cancer,
that old celestial
crab. Takes years to touch
carapace, jointed foot
on jointed leg; nudges
mandibles, roving, awed,
in every season.
                          Getting to know
you, still, I find you clear-eyed,
cloistered, clawed.

***

Current Mood: coughing
Current Music: Mets vs Dbacks on tv

torachan

1. I actually got a full night’s sleep! Fingers crossed that continues.

2. It was a little rainy this morning (never more than sprinkling, really, and never for a long time) but dry the rest of the day. Very windy and cold, though. I’ve been wearing shorts and t-shirts since we got here, but today was definitely a jeans and hoodie day and unlike Disneyland, you can’t get back in the park once you leave, so we wouldn’t have been able to go back to the hotel and change if we’d needed to, but thankfully we made the right choice in the morning. It was colder than I would prefer today (especially with that wind!) but I’ll take it over the heat we had this weekend. (Still getting over the sunburn…)

3. We had a really nice day at Universal Studios. Even though we were only there for a few hours yesterday, it really did help us navigate better today, so I’m glad we went with the 1.5 day ticket. I do wish I’d done more research about the express passes and access to Super Nintendo World, because I tried to buy passes this morning before we went over there and they were all sold out. If you get a pass for one of the rides in Super Nintendo World, it guarantees access to the land, but otherwise you might end up with a situation like I did yesterday where even though you reserve a spot, there’s still a lottery for who gets in. I think that might only be for later in the day, though. This morning I couldn’t sign up for access at all, so I thought it was all sold out, too, but I then later I read something that they have non-reserved access first thing in the morning, so I tried again and was able to get a reservation for 3pm. Didn’t get to go on any of the rides because without a fast pass the lines were ridiculous (3 hours for Minecart Madness) but at least we got to go in and see the land. Even their original Super Nintendo land is bigger than ours, but now it has the Donkey Kong expansion so it’s huge and really impressive. We had a great time overall, though. Rode a few things they don’t have at our park, saw some shows, ate some delicious food, and took in the sights.

oliviacirce

A little devotional-ish poetry for Easter Monday. I love Joy Harjo.

( Eagle Poem )

musesfool

Today's poem:

Great Things Have Happened

We were talking about the great things
that have happened in our lifetimes;
and I said, "Oh, I suppose the moon landing
was the greatest thing that has happened
in my time." But, of course, we were all lying.
The truth is the moon landing didn't mean
one-tenth as much to me as one night in 1963
when we lived in a three-room flat in what once had been
the mansion of some Victorian merchant prince
(our kitchen had been a clothes closet, I'm sure),
on a street where by now nobody lived
who could afford to live anywhere else.
That night, the three of us, Claudine, Johnnie and me,
woke up at half-past four in the morning
and ate cinnamon toast together.

"Is that all?" I hear somebody ask.

Oh, but we were silly with sleepiness
and, under our windows, the street-cleaners
were working their machines and conversing in Italian, and
everything was strange without being threatening,
even the tea-kettle whistled differently
than in the daytime: it was like the feeling
you get sometimes in a country you've never visited
before, when the bread doesn't taste quite the same,
the butter is a small adventure, and they put
paprika on the table instead of pepper,
except that there was nobody in this country
except the three of us, half-tipsy with the wonder
of being alive, and wholly enveloped in love.

--Alden Nowlan

*

Current Mood: awake

torachan

1. Still failing on the sleep front, but I keep hoping the next night will be better. We’ll see!

2. We had planned to go to Dotonbori this morning before heading over to Universal Studios, but were both worn out from yesterday’s sunburn and Carla was sore, so we decided to skip it for this trip and just rest in the morning before we needed to check out. There were some shops nearby that were on the list to check out (Muji and HMV), but they both didn’t open until 11, so we rested and then packed up and checked it and had the hotel hold our luggage. The Muji was a huge one that has a cafe, too, so that’s where we had lunch.

3. Another change in plans was that we were going to take the train to USJ, but with Carla being so exhausted the idea of lugging our bags on public transport was not appealing so we decided to just get a taxi. It was of course much more expensive than taking the train would have been (even though it’s only five miles away), but it was worth it.

4. The Front Gate Hotel here at USJ is way nicer in every way than the Hankyu Respire in Umeda was, even though it’s much cheaper. The Respire you’re definitely paying for the convenience of being in the heart of the city.

5. We got the 1.5 day tickets for USJ so we just went in for a few hours this afternoon/evening to explore the park. Could not get into Super Nintendo Land, but hopefully tomorrow.

oliviacirce

My brother Pete died fifteen years ago in March, which is kind of crazy to think about. How can it have been fifteen years? How has it only been fifteen years? (Maybe less the second one, but later this month I turn 41, which is the age he was when he died, and that sure makes me feel some type of way.) Grief is a very strange thing, and sometimes poetry helps me understand it better, or at least feel less alone in something that is often isolating, even while being completely universal. Since 2012—or 2011, I guess, if you count the original day—I've been posting grief poems on April 5, the anniversary of the day we held his memorial.

This poem is from Gregory Orr's How Beautiful the Beloved, which is a whole book of perfect little gems like this one. ( Grief will come to you )

green

Hi, all!

My mood has improved, and I've had energy for the past 3 days. Out of nowhere. I actually got some much-needed cleaning done, and it's been very beneficial to my mental health. I've been eating healthier leading up to my first Ozempic shot, so that might have something to do with it, but it hasn't been a HUGE change yet, just little stuff. But I guess it could have still made a difference. idk, I just feel great. It's so weird!

musesfool

Happy Easter if you celebrate! Happy Sunday if not.

Here is today's poem:

Sunflower Astronaut
by Charlie Espinosa

[commence imbibition]

I begin my log in the seed capsule. There is little to report.
I am dormant. I am alone. I am drifting through the void.
Sometimes, I wonder what lies beyond the vacuum-sealed walls.
Sometimes, I swear I hear a very faint, very beautiful, song.

I have landed. Surface: moist. Atmosphere: favorable. Competition: unknown.
I discard the shriveled seed coat. Every cell in my body pulses with life.
Enzymes fly like meteorites and I emerge, gasping from my pod.

[commence germination]

There is no need to waste time with instructions.
I open my endosperm sack and gorge on the stored feast of sugar.
Invigorated, my radicle, that intrepid probe, plunges into the depths.
For the first time I taste, no absorb, the rich minerals of the new world.

My cotyledons unfurl like two green sails into the light.
Ah, sweet solar wind, filling my chlorophyll with galactic energy.
Gradually, I establish myself here, growing up and down, in light and dark.

[commence vegetative growth]

Forgive me. I have not been carefully logging my progress.
The divisions, they simply became too numerous to catalogue.
Besides, I was in a kind of trance, conducting the photo-symphony–
Keeping my glucose stocks fat and multiplying my meristems.

The important point is that I am tall with a well-defined stalk and enviable leaves.
There are other sunflowers too, and a rather impudent beast who is fond of digging.
All in all, I have adapted well. I am happy. Though I don’t care for the beast.

[commence ripening]

For months I have studied the sun. My head of bracts tracked its arc like an antenna.
Now I am a sun, with a yellow crown and a hot core of disk florets and pollen.
I, too, emit signals to orbiting bodies who come and go with fertile stardust.
Was this my mission, to set into motion a new solar system?

I merge with another star. My head sags under the weight of our fruits.
The inflorescence fades. The wind scatters my wilted petals over the floor.
It has become difficult to know where I end and where this planet begins.

[commence decomposition]

The digging beast beheaded me and made off with my seeds.
The sparrows peck at what’s left. Somehow, I don’t seem to mind.
Each day, a little darker, a little colder, siphons me away.

I said before I began alone, but now I remember something else:
Being a seed among other seeds encircled in a halo of yellow rays.

*

I made gyoza! #mygyoza They might not look that great but they are delicious!

*

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Mets vs Giants on tv

torachan

1. I got more sleep last night than the night before and fell asleep right away, but the total was still only like 5-5.5 hours max. Hopefully tonight will be more.

2. We had a really fun day today with

nintendoh and his husband. Cherry blossom viewing at Osaka Castle and then lunch at an okonomiyaki place and karaoke after that. None of us had been karaoke in years and this was a reminder of how much I enjoy it. It also provided a really nice way to relax after getting too much sun at the castle (the forecast had promised overcast weather all day so we did not put on sunblock or bring hats, which was a mistake as it was not overcast during the whole midday period that we were out).

3. Alex sent us lots of cat pics today again. I miss them so much but I’m glad they seem more settled this time.

musesfool

Today's poem:

After After
by Kristi Maxwell

This was after we moved into pencil drawings of tree houses on stilts, but before the cows grazed in the diminishing field of the freckle signifying our face.

This was after a refusal of berries too close to rotting, but before self-consciousness about metaphor.

This was after the butter-soaked collard greens, but before we deflated the ache as if it were something reusable and easily stowed.

This was after the pimple you mistook for jam and, obviously, failed to wipe off, but before the last comma, which we obstinately misplaced.

This was after the bite mark, but before the tongue.

This was after the nosegay protecting the nose from the plague-stench, but before the video of the autopsy of the woman with a bra and panties matching your own.

This was after lushness, but before lushness.

This was after the ghosts caught fire and after their flimsy collage of light, but before the building conceived space and before the hard labor and before the dead men.

This was after the green shoe busted and the wool shoe, but before the description of a bus-struck owl.

This was after we knew, but long before saying.

*

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Go! by Santigold feat. Karen O

oliviacirce

A little Audre Lorde for a gloomy Saturday, and for my wife.

( A Lover's Song )

torachan

1. I only got a couple hours of sleep last night despite being exhausted, but it was enough to get me through the day. Hopefully will get more tonight.

2. We went to the Osaka Kaiyukan aquarium today and it was amazing! I took so many photos. Highly recommend it if you are ever in Osaka. All of the material is in English as well as Japanese, too.

3. We miss the kitties so much already but they don’t as freaked out about us being gone this time at least. Alex even sent a picture tonight of Ollie snuggled on her lap.

4. I have been wanting to watch Wake Up Dead Man since it came out but I am just crap at watching movies so I haven’t gotten to it, but I knew being stuck on a plane for 12+ hours was the perfect opportunity so I made sure to download it before we left and I did watch it on the flight. It was so good! I didn’t like Glass Onion as much as Knives Out (though I did still like it a lot) but this one was definitely just as good as the first one. I hope there will be more!

oliviacirce

This is the very first poem in the wonderful poetryisnotaluxury book, which came out last year and is beautiful and perfect because the person or people who run that account have impeccable taste. This poem is an old favorite, and also beautiful and perfect, but I can't lie: it inevitably reminds me of two fics that

thefourthvine titled from it, back in the day. In this new era of Hockey RPF-adjacent fandoms, my Sid/Geno roots go deep, and for obvious reasons, I have recently been doing quite a bit of rereading. I also just love this poem.

( One Heart )

musesfool

So my big plan to make gyoza this weekend was almost derailed earlier when I received someone else's grocery order in total, and zero percent of my grocery order. My fridge is now filled with THREE DOZEN EXTRA EGGS I did not order, along with some ground beef, some ridiculously expensive stew beef (which I will have to figure out how to cook so it is not well done, because well-done beef gives me the yucks - marinating and roasting might be the way), an enormous container of Fair Life lactose-free milk, some lovely fruit I would not have ordered yet (not in season, but I will use it) and some KERRY GOLD BUTTER (another thing I would never order because I'm not MADE OF MONEY). But no scallions, cabbage, or ground pork.

So I got on the phone with Stop and Shop and the CSR was very good and got my order re-ordered, and it was just delivered, so it looks like ~~meat~~ gyoza are back on the menu, boys! Though I do not have room to make the chocolate frosted vanilla cupcakes I was planning to make since there's no room in the fridge for anything else right now. I just used up 8 eggs I already had to make a frittata since I need the space (so I have a total of FOUR DOZEN EGGS right now, which would be fantastic if I were boiling and coloring them for Easter, but I am not. or if I needed them to make Swiss meringue frosting, which I also do not).

I'm very glad i didn't do the extra Instacart order from Key Food I thought about last night, because Stop and Shop doesn't have gyoza wrappers and Key Food does, but they look pretty easy to make, so I will spend time tomorrow doing all that. And maybe I will make those egg rollups on Monday for the week so I can use up more eggs. I guess we'll see!

Today's poem is very far removed from *gestures* all of that!

Wilderness
by Lorine Niedecker

You are the man
You are my other country
and I find it hard going

You are the prickly pear
You are the sudden violent storm

the torrent to raise the river
to float the wounded doe

* * *

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: I Don't Wanna Know - Fleetwood Mac

torachan

1. We arrived safe and sound in Japan! The flight was delayed slightly due to headwinds, but I think we were only like 20 minutes later than planned. The biggest annoyance was that the gate was changed last minute and while I received a email about it, I somehow missed the email and the board at the original gate still had the info for our flight showing as if it was still boarding there. Thankfully we realized in time and were able to get to the new gate right when boarding started. Customs went pretty quick and we were able to get a bus to the hotel right away. And the drop off for the bus was a lot closer to the hotel than it looked on google maps. Totally exhausted now but hopefully that means we can just go to bed and wake up on Japan time (it’s 10:30pm here now).

2. I got donuts this morning on my walk before we headed to the airport so that was a nice breakfast.

3. I miss the kitties but Alex sent some pics while we were on the plane so that was nice to see when we arrived and had cell service again.

Daily Happiness

Antique clocks are a problem because you have to wind them

she's wind through wild thyme

the narrative burden of events

Daily Happiness

hot as molten silver

you do the math, you expect the trouble

Daily Happiness

Me-and-media update

but I sit silent and burning

Wednesday Reading Meme

ask the moon

Daily Happiness

You had a 50-50 shot!

(no subject)

each nonetheless keeps the perfect arc of his distance

Daily Happiness

swept our hearts clean

everything was strange without being threatening

Daily Happiness

keep singing

update

Sometimes, I swear I hear a very faint, very beautiful, song.

Daily Happiness

but before the last comma, which we obstinately misplaced

give me fire

Daily Happiness

inside you, open

you are the prickly pear

Daily Happiness

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