command_liners | Member Posts

Books
Finished Dr Karl's Vital Science. I didn't know, when I borrowed the audiobook, that it's an illustrated episodic, graphic novel-ish thing. It does not work well in audiobook form. The structure doesn't come across.

Read Will McMahon's short story 'The Wisdom of the Galaxy', about deli workers and a parrot and possibly aliens.

About halfway through Platform Decay.

Forgot to mention last time: blackle mori's beautiful, weird, sad mixed media work, [DELISTED] I Found Evidence Of My House Spinning | U&U Forums (LibreCrawl archive 2026-09-03). I highly recommend this if you like weird fiction, horror, and loving but clear-eyed depictions of old school internet forums.

Crafts
Finished sewing two card wallets. My old one, which I bought from Etsy idek how many years ago but more than a decade, was still holding up well structurally, but was looking very shabby. A quick, fun project.

Made an origami butterfly.

Links

Your ‘App’ Could Have Been a Webpage: a heroic feat of spite-first web app design

Bastardica: horrifying (impressed) font hybrids

A Matter of Form: an animated film about point and line and shape and colour, set to Schubert's 'Military March'

Cats
The warmer weather seems to be agreeing with them.

kerravonsen

Creator registration for Marvel Trumps Hate 2026 is officially open! Make Marvel-themed fannish works for charity!

(No, this has got NOTHING to do with the Orange Menace, the word "trump" actually means stuff to do with card games, y'know.)

Sign-ups are open from now until 11:59 PM ET on Saturday, October 10, with Auction Week taking place from November 1 to November 7. All auction deadlines will be at 11:59 PM Eastern Time (ET) USA.

Full announcement here.

I WILL be signing up! I will be making my fabulous stealth-fannish jewellery again.

tcpip

The alignment of calendars has led to a flurry of Chinese-related events this week. On Monday evening, I attended the Victorian Chinese Community celebration of China's National Day in West Footscray. There were about five hundred people present and, in my role as ACFS president along with several community leaders and public figures, I gave a short speech that emphasised not only Australia's connection with China, but a future built on the critical matters of renewable energy and green manufacturing (Australia will benefit enormously from "green steel" manufacturing), and noting especially how far China has progressed in the fields of solar and wind power, electric vehicles, and reforestration. Pitching to the audience with an agenda, I made the popular comment that if China succeeds in these fields, then the smart people will say in fifty years' time that China saved the world.

The following day was a similar function for the same reason, hosted by the Consulate at the Langham Ballroom in Southbank. This particular event tends to feature more political figures delivering speeches (the Consul-General, for obvious reasons, spoke at both functions). This time, I was interviewed by China Central Television on my personal views of China and international relations with the upcoming Xi Jinping - Donald Trump meeting in Washington. I suggested that a strong comparison could be made between the current US regime's use of war and China's use of trade, and between China's relative stability in international relations and the inconsistency of the US. Both events, it must be said and true to form, were superbly catered and with exceptional entertainment from various musicians and dancers.

On a much smaller scale, tonight the ACFS is hosting a movie night, the family-friendly "Little Tiger Banban" (2001). China's first 3D CGI animated feature film, a tale of the environment, loyalty, and commitment. It coincides with the evening of the harvest moon festival, the second-most important celebration in the Chinese calendar (Neil Young would approve). I am particularly fond of the mythologies of Chang'e associated with the day, and the re-union and remembrance aspect; "no matter how far apart we are, we are still under the same moon". I also made another (better) attempt to make mooncakes this year, using my Halloween moulds for a bit of cultural fusion. Finally, tomorrow night, the Fujian Association has invited me to their Harvest Moon festival event.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: The Rookery
Current Music: Chinese Harvest Moon music compilation

vass

Hi everyone.

Books
Since a month ago...
I finished v1 of Dungeon Meshi and enjoyed it enough to place a library hold on the next book, which hasn't come yet.

I really liked Nagoski's Come Together up until the last chapter or so, at which point I got hit with an unexpected trigger: unannounced, unexpected guided meditation session. I don't like being told what to feel or what I am feeling, and it really seemed to come out of nowhere. That's individual to me, though, and maybe the print/ebook editions signpost it clearer.

Read, and enjoyed, the audiobook of Naomi Novik's Uprooted.

Reread (or read? the start was familiar enough that I'm certain I at least started it, but I don't remember the ending or much of the middle) T. Kingfisher's Swordheart.

Read T. Kingfisher's Daggerbound. I enjoy her settings and plots more than I do her romances, but that still leaves plenty to enjoy.

Read Adam-Troy Castro's 2014 short story 'The Thing About Shapes To Come', which was competently written and and might have moved me more if I'd never encountered any disability theory.

Reading Dr Kurt Kruszelnicki's Vital Science as an audiobook, and finding it rushed even for a bite-sized science facts book. I'd appreciate a bit more time explaining the fun facts, and possibly fewer plugs for his many other such books.

Still reading Cliff Tan's Feng Shui Modern and getting increasingly impatient with the unworkable, insufficiently theoretically grounded, or simply baffling advice.

The toilet shouldn't be near:

the kitchen (water element)

the office ("irrelevant functions")

the bedroom ("sleeping is not associated with water or waste")

within sight of the main door

So where should it be?
"as far from the other rooms of the house as possible"
Okay... tiny outhouse at the back of the garden it is.

"Avoid sharp corners or beams, including open shelves, over or around the entry area. If you can't avoid this, paint them the same colour as the walls to make them less obvious, or soften them with plants or lights."

I think softening them with padding might be more to the point, especially if you're painting them to be harder to see and therefore avoid.

Reading Emily Nagoski's Burnout.

Just started Martha Wells' Platform Decay.

Impulse-bought, at an op shop for $1 and $2 respectively, Matthew Gardiner's Essential Origami and Michele Abel's The Art of Rubber Stamping. Distractions are good to have.

Crafts
Bought some origami paper and folded a crane and a fish.

Spent some audiobook time (the Nagoski twins, I think it was) gridding my next cross-stitch project. My first time trying to use Easy Count Guideline. Still haven't finished. Really hate gridding, as it turns out.

Bought some alcohol-based markers from KMart and coloured an old colouring bookmark from Book Depository back when Book Depository existed at all and hadn't been bought by Amazon.

Bought some shit-tier rubber alphabet stamps and a pack of tiny stamp pads in a variety of colours, also from KMart, and experimented with stamping.

Garden
It is spring, the time of the weeding.

Cats
Dorian has chronic kidney disease. It's not fun. Switched them both to prescription food, and he's on medication, but he's lost a bunch of weight and has anaemia and a heart murmur. I am not coping well with this. He's hanging in there watching birds and playing with the Birdie.

tcpip

As is the contemporary respectful fashion, happy Ganesh Chaturthi for those who celebrate, which, in a way, includes me. For the sake of clarity, I do not literally believe in an elephant-headed humanoid diety any more than any other Gods, except Nature itself and I don't even grant that personification within our ken. Outside of naturalistic pantheism, I consider the Gods to be metaphors, mythical personifications of concepts both abstract and concrete, and the rituals surrounding them to serve both the sociological purpose of community identity and for dramaturgical aesthetics. Heretical? Certainly, and when have I ever been otherwise? At least this way I personally avoid the Scylla of irrationalible magical thinking and Charybdis of grey vulgar atheism.

All that said, there is a lot of charm in Sri Ganesha, the Pratham Pujya of Hinduism and the recipient of devotion in Jainism and even Buddhism. He is the God of Beginnings, and of Obstacles (both removing them and putting them in place). His big head represents his wisdom and intellect, his belly a cosmological holding, and his broken tusk represents a break in intellectual thought and, sometimes, even a weapon. With rodent appeal, Ganesha has a rat, which is both his vehicle and helps him find hidden places (or knowledge), and must be reined in due to its propensity to steal things. I've seen modern suggestions that the multiple arms represent the ability to multitask. There are, of course, many variations on the story of Ganesha that could fill volumes, but these comments at least capture some core, common characteristics.

Apart from this recognition, an important aspect of festivals is food, and for Ganesh Chaturthi, I made an attempt at Uadiche Modak (soft rice flour dumpling with a centre of coconut, dessicated and shredded, and jaggery). Delicious, but with one small and critical failing on my part - I tried to mix coconut flour with the rice flour for extra taste and, well, they don't play well together. Degrees of failure are the price of innovation. Anyway, I have my own Ganesh shrine at home which receives more attention that anything else; an impressive mutri (statue) is inherited from Rick, who was rather fond of Hinduism, two rats with offerings and a guardian from Nitul, who knows all this better than I ever will, a puzzle box from Anton, a Balinese dolphin from my last visit, and two guardian bookends from my first visit some twenty-four years ago.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: The Rookery
Current Music: Indian trance compilation

althea_valara

I slept well the second night, huzzah! And I was determined NOT to be late today, so I set my alarm for... I think it was 7am? Might have been 7:30am, but pretty sure it was the former.

( Day 3 under cut )

And that was my vacation! I think I did enjoy the Field the best, even though I was tired for it. I remain glad I planned this and followed through, and am very grateful to mom for paying for the hotel room.

althea_valara

So as I said at the end of Day 1, I had problems falling asleep due to PAIN. I didn't drift off until around 3:30am. I had reset my alarm from my normal 7:30am to 8:30am, so I could get an extra hour. This wasn't the original plan - I had intended to be up early and at the Planetarium when they opened. Staying asleep an extra hour, as much as I needed it, threw a wrench in my morning.

( the rest of the day under a cut )

azurelunatic

Kittenpants has discovered burrowing under blankets, or "unders". When her own digging at the blanket in question has failed to give the desired result, she has decided on a particularly peevish mew to get the point across. (When she's done, she uses the same mew.) All this is extremely adorable, except while I'm asleep.

asenathwaite

These little guys are all over our neighborhood.

Current Mood: sick

althea_valara

FOLKS THIS IS GOING TO BE LONG AND PHOTO-TASTIC! Definitely going under a cut!

The last time I took a TRUE vacation was in September of 2010. (No, I don't count going to Colorado for my cousin's wedding and to see my uncle one last time, as that was an obligation and not by choice.) So, it's been SIXTEEN YEARS since my last real vacation, and boy howdy was I overdue and in need of it.

I would have LOVED to go out of city somewhere, but (a) I knew I wanted to do something for my birthday, (b) I decided this in late July, which didn't give me much lead time, (c) I didn't know where I could go that wouldn't cost me more money than I was comfortable spending at this time. So I chose a stay-cation in Chicago, going to some of its attracions over the course of three days.

Day 1, September 14th: Nature Museum, Lincoln Park Zoo, and an impromptu visit to a LYS

The trip started early on Monday, though not as early as I had hoped. Like normal, I underestimated how much time I would need to shower, dress, etc. A bathroom visit caused me to leave about ten minutes later than I had planned, oops. Still, mom was able to drop me off at the train station in time for me to buy a ticket and wait 5 minutes for the train. Yay!

I hadn't realized the train would be non-stop from my village to Downtown. THAT WAS NICE. Because of morning nerves, I hadn't eaten before I left, and I was hungry when I got off the train. Apple Maps said the nearby Dunkin' was closed (on a Monday?!?) but I checked anyway because it was RIGHT THERE next to the station, and it was indeed open. I got a maple bacon breakfast sandwich and a pumpkin coolata drink, but he overfilled the drink. He wiped it off with a napkin but my hands got all sticky, as did my phone because I had to use it to guide me to where the bus stop was.

I overestimated how long the bus would take! I got to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum about 20 minutes before opening. But it was a lovely morning, so I happily sat on a bench by the bus stop, then wandered towards the museum and sat on another branch there. I had texted mom when I got off the bus, and she said I'd be the first one in. WRONG! The stroller brigade was! They all wandered up as I was sitting waiting, and I let them and their kiddos enter first.

I had last been to this museum gosh, 20 years ago, I think? I had quite enjoyed it then, enough to want to become a member or even volunteer there. Because I had adored it so much, I had chosen to make it the first stop on my trip. Unfortunately, I ended up a little disappointed--just about all the exhibits were exactly as I remembered them being, so there wasn't anything to really grab my interest.

After wandering around the ground floor, I ventured back to the gift shop, where I bought some swag:

[Image Description: Stuff I bought at the Nature Museum: a small cross-stitch kit of a cardinal, a blue butterfly necklace, and a double chain necklace. The latter necklace features a pink flower on one chain, and a darker pink butterfly on the other.]

I think it was then that I noticed a sign saying there'd be a First Flight butterfly release at 2pm (or was it 2:30? can't remember). I would have LOVED to see that! But I also intended to visit the Lincoln Park Zoo, which was just close enough to walk to, but just far enough not to make it back quickly... so I made a decision to go into the Butterfly Garden then, rather than attempt to come back later.

I'm glad I did go in then! It wasn't crowded at all--for a time I had the whole garden to myself. It's not very big, but it is STILL one of the best butterfly gardens I've been to. As soon as I walked in, it was BOOM! Butterflies in your face!

Watch on YouTube

[Video Description: a short video of butterflies flitting through the air, shortly after entering the Garden.]

Watch on YouTube

[Video Description: walking around a bend in the path. One butterfly flies across the path, while two more are discovered around the bend.]

Watch on YouTube

[Video Description: a wider view of the room, showing off how many butterflies you can see at a time.]

When you exit the Garden, there's another room with windows to a labratory, in which I spotted this sign that I just HAD to take a picture of:

[Image Description: A sign reading "Beware of Attack Butterfly"]

The windows to the room are actually hatcheries for butterflies and moths:

A window full of recently emerged butterflies.

[Image Description: A window full of butterflies recently emerged from their cocoons.]

On my way back to the entrance of the museum, one exhibit on a wall did capture my interest! Titled "Weaving Resilience", this exhibit compared woven fabrics to flora and fauna found in nature. It was really need to see how that matched lace trimmings to butterflies, etc.

[Image Description: A display at the Nature Museum, titled "Weaving Resilence". It features weaving frames with strips of cloth woven through them, surrounding a center display. The center display features circular hoops holding examples of woven fabrics that resemble flora and fauna.]

[Image Description: A close-up of the Weaving Resilience centerpiece, showing samples of cloth and the flora and fauna they resemble.]

The museum had opened at 10am. I left for the zoo at 11:11am. Yeah, I got through it FAST. Still, I have no regrets of going because the butterflies were worth it.

I then began walking to the zoo. I wasn't sure how long of a walk it was, so I went slow. It felt longer than it really was, I think, because it was at 11:25am that I messaged the following to discord:

Walk to zoo accomplished! Sitting the fuck down for a bit. I couldn’t have asked for better weather. There’s a cool breeze keeping me from dripping with sweat. (Am still glistening but it’s not bad at all.)

The Lincoln Park Zoo is always free to the public. Oh--I haven't mentioned yet that my tickets to ALL the venues were FREE this week for being an Illinois Resident! SCORE! That helped keep my costs down. I had assumed it'd be busy these days because of the free admission, but hey, school is back in session and none of the museums were crowded at all.

The Nature Museum felt like it was filled with suburban families. Nothing wrong with that, being a suburb gal myself now, but I have to say I was delighted to see people of all different cultures walking around the zoo. It reminded me of how lucky I feel to be living in a big city (or near to one, anyway!) and experience so many different things.

The Zoo would be a repetition of "walk a bit, look at some animals, sit down, repeat", and I retraced my steps a lot. It's been so long since I've been there that I couldn't remember where anything was, so I walked in circles some. Despite the beautiful weather, there weren't many animals out in it, but I did see some!

[Image Description: Female lions lounging under a tilted tree.]

While in the small reptile/mammal house, I had just gone upstairs to a viewing area when a zookeeper entered one of the enclosures to give a critter its lunch!

A zookeeper is feeding one of the reptiles.

[Image Description: Feeding time! A zookeeper feeds a reptile perched on a tree branch.]

Speaking of lunch, it was time for my own. I found the cafe, and after some dithering, deciding on vegetarian nachos with rice and beans and other toppings. The toppings were good! The chips themselves were the cheap ones used for nachos at carnivals, so that was a disappointment. But hey, at least I was fed.

Shortly after lunch, I ended up in the gift shop:

[Image Description: Stuff I bought at the Lincoln Park Zoo: a gray cooling towel that has its own carrying case you can clip on something, and a very pretty glass magnet.]

I wandered some more after that, and saw LIVE YARN!!!

[Image Description: LIVE YARN! in three colors. Okay, they're alpacas. One cream, one brown, and one black. The black one is partially hidden behind the cream one, which is grazing.]

This cracked

lassarina up, and we then had a conversation about alpaca yarn. That put yarn on my mind, and say, there's a bunch of yarn stores in the city, might one be close by?

One was! So after a bit more zoo wandering, I exited and took the Clark bus up a few more stops, got off, and walked some more to Sister Arts Studio.

[Image Description: Yarn Bomb on a tree outside Sister Arts Studio, a local yarn store. It spells out the shop's name.]

I almost past the shopped up, because I was using Apple Maps to guide me and it seemed to indicate it was a little further away, but knitted ponchos in the storefront window caught my eye. I stood outside for a few minutes, using my handy new cooling towel to mop off sweat and wring my hair out at the back of my neck, then put the towel around my neck and walked in.

It's a nice shop! Still on the small side, but much bigger than my LYS, which is so tiny that I've been in private bathrooms bigger than it. The salesclerk was having a conversation with a customer when I entered, so I looked around at the yarn some, and then gently entered myself into the conversation when they started discussing Magic Loop vs. DPNs (I can use both, but have a preference for DPNs myself).

Once the clerk finally rang up the other customer, I told her I had looked on Ravelry for potential patterns to make before arriving. I had narrowed it down to three:

* Stole Dunes which is STUNNING but the LYS didn't have any gradient lace yarn
* Celestarium, a circular beaded shawl of the night sky.
* Mystical Forest Lace Shawl, a crescent shawl by a talented shawl designer

I strongly considered Celestarium, as I was planning on hitting the Planetarium the next day and I thought it would be appropriate to buy yarn for a space-related design, but decided against it because, well, it's the NIGHT SKY, it should be a deep blue, right? And I already have a navy blue shawl. I didn't want another, plus Celestarium is a LOT of stockinette, and I'm already knitting something with that.

So, Mystical Forest Lace Shawl it was! It was then just a matter of picking out the yarn. From the moment I entered, my eye had been drawn to the display of Urth Yarns. The colors were all so vibrant! I really considered a green as the shawl is named for a forest, but ended up with a bright aqua blue.

[Image Description: Four skeins of yarn that I bought. They are all the same deep aqua color in a fingering weight.]

Purchase made, it was time to head to the hotel. I am truly grateful to my mom for paying for the room. I could have managed it myself, but it would have wiped out most of my savings. As it was, there's a big trade show in town this week, so when I made the reservation, prices were double what they normally would cost and there were a dearth of openings!

I had originally planned on staying three nights--going up leisurely on Sunday so I could sleep in Monday some--but ended up staying just two because of cost. This did mean I carried my backpack THE ENTIRE DAY on Monday, as I couldn't check into my room until 4pm. Oof. Anyway, I chose to stay at a Kasa hotel near the Magnificent Mile. I... might have found something a little cheaper at a hotel I had previous stayed up, but I hadn't really liked that hotel, and this one sounded promising, so yes, I gave it a try.

Boy, am I glad I did!

I knew it was a "studio", so I did expect some seating along with a bed. I thought there might be a microwave, too. What I actually got wowed me:

[Image Description: A photo of my studio hotel room, looking towards the sleeping area. There's a bed on the back wall with a nightstand next to it. On the left wall is a walk-in closet (!!!) and a small, simple desk with a blue chair and lamp. A circular mirror is over the desk. In the foreground is a small table for eating. It's circular and white with two white chairs.]

[Image Description: A photo of my studio hotel room, looking towards the kitchen and living room. Just visible on the left is a blue couch (viewed from behind) and a chair with a floor lamp next to it. The kitchen holds a medium-sized refrigerator, full-sized stove, a microwave, a dishwasher (!!), an electric tea kettle, and a toaster.]

Not mentioned in the pics was that it had two MORE closets: one small one in which hung an ironing board an iron, and another one which housed a stacking small washer and dyer. ALL the items you could need! The kitchen was stocked, too, with pots, pans, dishes and silverwave - not a big abundance but enough for anything you'd consder making.

Well. Because I had a full kitchen, I decided to save myself a bit of money and NOT go out for dinner that night. Instead, I walked around the block to the nearby Aldi, and bought a box of white cheddar mac and cheese, a bottle of Gatorade, a gallon of purified water, and fixings for breakfast (frozen pumpkin waffles, cinnamon butter, pumpkin spice syrup.)

What I failed to buy was ibuprofen. It hadn't occured to me to do so. I would regret this later.

I made it back to my room, drank the Gatorade quickly (I needed it!), poured a glass of water and started the pasta. Then I tried turning on the TV to watch the season opener of Wheel of Fortune, but the TV required signing in to streaming services and well, we don't have any streaming accounts. I shrugged and turned it off - I'm not a big TV watcher as it is, so that was fine with me.

I ate, cleaned up, started knitting some... but did not last long before I was getting ready for bed and climbing into it. I was so exhausted that I had told mom I'd have no problem sleeping that night.

Wrong.

Why was I wrong? Well:

[Image Description: My step count for Sept 14th. It shows I walked 13,334 steps - or 5.1 miles. Wowzers!]

Folks, I usually average 600 steps OR LESS a day. This was so much more than I was used to, AND while carrying a backpack! Unfortunately, my poor feet and legs let me know all about it. I was very sore, and could barely walk barefooted to and from the bathroom. And this was WITH wearing a good pair of shoes!

Around 2am, I still hadn't really fallen asleep, and considered throwing my shoes on and going down to the vending machine to see if it had painkillers in it. But the vending machine was on a different floor, and I really didn't want to be wandering around the place that late at night, so I just turned back in and tried to sleep.

I was up again at 3:15am. I ended up eating the entire bag of pumpkin caramel clusters I had bought.

Finally, I fell asleep shortly before 4am. And thus ended the first day of my vacation.

It took an hour and 40 minutes to write this much. You'll have to wait for days 2 and 3. Please look forward to them!

Current Mood: tired

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Command Liners

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Marvel Trumps Hate Sign-Ups Are Open!

Four Chinese Functions in a Week

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Loving Ganesha

VACATION POST! Day 3

VACATION POST! Day 2

A new kitten invention

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VACATION POST! Day 1

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January 2022

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