siderea | Reading

We got a bunch of snow on Sunday and paid someone to clear the sidewalks, but as expected, there was a lot more snow overnight. This morning I noticed that someone had done another pass on the public sidewalk in front of our house -- nice! I suspected our next-door neighbor, who's done that for us before (and I return the favor if I get outside first, though he usually beats me), but he said it wasn't him this time. He did, however, start shoveling my front steps at about the time I went out to clear a path from our door to the public sidewalk, which is how I found out he didn't know who did the sidewalk in front of both our houses. Later, when Dani and I were shoveling the back sidewalk and mini-driveway, he showed up again to help. After he helped us he proceeded up the block.

A bit over a year ago, we had a furnace emergency on a very cold day -- contractors had nicked the gas line, so service was cut off and couldn't be turned on until someone from the utility could inspect the repair, which in the end happened at 2AM. The neighbor three doors up noticed the activity going well into the evening, came by to ask if we needed any help, and upon learning that it was a furnace problem, immediately offered space heaters and said to call at any hour if we were too cold that night. I was touched that someone who I've only had occasional sidewalk conversations with both noticed the possible problem and offered help unprompted.

I'm very glad to live in a place where neighbors look out for each other.

conuly

Every time I look at the news, it's something worse.

The Onion, strangely, decided against satire for this one and only reported the facts as they actually happened

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3199/

'Ugh, I'm never going to be like spiders. My descendants will all just be normal arthropods who mind their own busines and don't do anything weird.' --The ancestor of a bunch of eusocial insects

https://xkcd.com/3199/

conuly

Made dinner - left it home.

And there’s no delivery because of all this snow. Also, they’re nearly out of food.

Good thing I waited for the bus at the corner store - I have cheezits, coke, and a cupcake, a c food diet. (And in the morning I’ll eat some of their Cheerios!)

I nearly didn’t make it in. Couldn’t get a car, and my bus kept getting canceled, but finally one made it out of the terminal.

conuly

The plot is picking up and I have no idea where it's going!

Also, it is absolutely impossible to track down the music for that show. There was one song I liked, so I tried to look it up. No dice. I eventually gave in and searched up "Killjoys soundtrack" and then, armed with the song title and artist name, tried again. Still no luck. I did find an entirely different song that's apparently written by somebody with no internet presence at all. If it wasn't apparently their only song I'd suspect AI. That picture is AI, though, has "artificial" written all over it, in illegible text. Song's not too uncatchy, but - I honestly don't know why the music in Killjoys is so hard to find.

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gingicat posting in

davis_square

Summary:
- begins at 10AM Sunday (tomorrow)
- parking on ODD-numbered side only
- no parking on main arteries including Harvard Avenue, College Avenue, and Boston Avenue.

Details:( Read more... )

rmc28

I just met someone to return their partner's phone, which I found in the road on the way home from ice hockey practice around 1am. Phone, case and debit card all scattered and wet from the rain I was grateful to have missed, the phone itself cracked but still intact. I put them in my bike and went on home.

There I dried everything out and set out to see if I could get in touch with the owner. I couldn't get into the phone, couldn't make calls or send messages, could access emergency contact info but it hadn't been populated, could view Gmail notifications which gave me the owners email address. I emailed it (and had the satisfying confirmation of seeing the resulting notification a short while later). I could see someone had been repeatedly calling the phone, and when they did so again I answered and we were in business. The owner was in a car accident, spent the night in A&E, and just got out, poor thing. I've just come back from meeting the partner at the Co-op to hand it over.

The situation reminded me to check my own phone was set up with emergency contacts and medical info in the Emergency section, which can be accessed without unlocking the phone. I also have my email address showing on my lock screen (all my notifications have the content hidden unless the phone is unlocked). Let this be your reminder to consider what you want visible on your own phone if it is lost.

conuly

And not, apparently, legitimately going anywhere?

Guys, you need to tell me these things! Now where am I supposed to pirate this one from? (I mean, uh, legally obtain it - oh, fuck it.)

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3198/

'Oh, and can I borrow 50 sacks of loose flour, a pile of lithium-ion batteries, a bucket of bleach, and a bucket of vinega--' 'NO!!!!!!'

https://xkcd.com/3198/

rmc28

I don't think I mentioned getting a new phone last month. I very much enjoyed my tiny Jelly Star for a long time: it was very good for making it unsatisfying to scroll while out and about, and instead listen to more music and pay more attention to where I was. But eventually it started to be actually annoying and I did some thinking and looking at different phones, and ended up with a Motorola Razr folding phone. Still small by default! Still easy to prioritise music over scrolling! But much easier to do messaging, emails, etc when I need to.

As a surprise bonus, I have found that having a decent camera and a screen I can clearly see the results on means I'm taking more photos. It also has a neat timer function, and the folding phone is easy to set up to take photos at distances longer than my arm.

Here is a result taken this morning: me wearing another new possession, my CUIHC fleece. It is soft and cozy and I adore it, I've had it since Monday and love it unreasonably. I want to wear it all the time.

conuly

If you're actually writing for children, especially young children, then I guess you don't want to scare them off - but if you're writing for adolescents or adults you can afford to be honest.

So here's the thing. Every book or story in which a character gets glasses for the first time - or the second if their first pair is painfully out of date - emphasizes how clear everything is and how they can see so much detail that they had no idea they were missing. And yes, that's a thing. None of them point out that it's a thing that can be less "wondrous" and more "disorienting and distracting" until you've gotten used to seeing that much detail.

None of them mention that if your prescription is strong enough - especially if there's astigmatism involved - your perception will be wonky and you'll have a hard time judging how close and far things are for a day or two.

Definitely none of them mention that you will absolutely get eye strain every time you get a new prescription, and possibly headaches or nausea to accompany it. It goes away, again, in a day or two, but until it does you'll feel like you're cross-eyed at all times. (And with children, every year is a new prescription. They grow, which means their eyeballs grow, and just like that growth is unlikely to suddenly give them perfect vision if they already were nearsighted, it's also unlikely to keep them exactly where they were before.)

Absolutely none of them point out that if you've never worn glasses before you'll have to spend the aforementioned day or two learning how to not see the frames. This is also true if your old frames were much bigger than the new ones, but that, at least, is less likely to apply to children - their faces grow along with the rest of them, necessitating larger frames, so even if they choose a smaller overall style with the new pair the fact that it fits properly may even out.

Moving past the realm of accurate fiction writing, children really should have their first optometrist appointment, at the latest, in the summer before first grade (so, aged 5 or 6 years old). Ideally, they'll have it before they start school, at age 2 or 3, but you can't convince people on that point. They should have a new appointment every year until the age of 20 or so, or every two years if every year really is unfeasible, even if you don't think you see the signs of poor vision. They won't complain that they can't see, because they'll just assume that their vision is normal. This is true even if they wear glasses - you never notice how bad your eyes have gotten until you get a new prescription, and then it's like "whoa".

The screening done at school or at the doctor's office is imperfect at best. You really want the optometrist.

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rmc28

Heated Rivalry is on this year's Canada Reads longlist.

rmc28

It's been a whole adventure watching Heated Rivalry go mainstream (for once I can claim I was a fan before it was cool!). I turned on Radio 2 in a hire car on Tuesday evening and the presenter was talking about it. Half the UK ice hockey clubs are making social media posts riffing off the show, or at minimum using music from it in their updates.

But it's also more complicated. Zach Sullivan, one of the very very few out queer male professional hockey players in the world, made an Instagram post a few days ago, about how conflicted he feels about the show. Well worth a read if you have time. Heated Rivalry is a romantic fantasy, the hockey aspects are often wrong, and I agree with Zach that I'm not at all sure the enthusiasm over the show is making things better for closeted male players right now. (I hope it will in the long term, but I worry about the harm right now.)

Also, I am developing a visceral loathing for the phrase "boy aquarium" for hockey rinks.

it's gross
it's not just boys (men) who play ice hockey
please stop sexualising the spaces where people play and get changed

That last point: I play with two mixed (male-dominated) teams, I get changed in the same room as the men, and because my teams are not gross and the changing room is not a sexualised space, I feel safe doing so. If I changed separately, I would miss out on a whole load of the team connection and conversation, all the stuff that creates a team out of a bunch of people who turn up in the same place each week. So I stay and change with my team, and it's not a big deal, and I don't want people to make it a big deal.

conuly

Ms. Marcus says that an occasional poem is a poem
written about something
important
or special
that's gonna happen
or already did.
Think of a specific occasion, she says—and write about it.

Like what?! Lamont asks.
He's all slouched down in his seat.
I don't feel like writing about no occasion.

How about your birthday? Ms. Marcus says.
What about it? Just a birthday. Comes in June and it ain't
June, Lamont says. As a matter of fact,
he says, it's January and it's snowing.
Then his voice gets real low and he says
And when it's January and all cold like this
feels like June's a long, long ways away.

The whole class looks at Ms. Marcus.
Some of the kids are nodding.
Outside the sky looks like it's made out of metal
and the cold, cold air is rattling the windowpanes
and coming underneath them too.

I seen Lamont's coat.
It's gray and the sleeves are too short.
It's down but it looks like a lot of the feathers fell out
a long time ago.
Ms. Marcus got a nice coat.
It's down too but real puffy so
maybe when she's inside it
she can't even tell January from June.

Then write about January, Ms. Marcus says, that's
an occasion.
But she looks a little bit sad when she says it
Like she's sorry she ever brought the whole
occasional poem thing up.

I was gonna write about Mama's funeral
but Lamont and Ms. Marcus going back and forth
zapped all the ideas from my head.

I guess them arguing
on a Tuesday in January's an occasion
So I guess this is an occasional poem.

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Link

conuly

No real symptoms, but I'm a little stuffy and super sleepy.

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xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3197/

Unfortunately, my scheme to trick NASA has now taken over a decade longer than planned and has run way over budget.

https://xkcd.com/3197/

conuly

That is not a sentence I want to read at any time in the morning.

(In celsius terms, it's -10 and feels like death.)

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fabrisse

Just for as long as it took me to wipe and Desitin her little butt, but she is able to feel her back legs enough to help.

She's on a different antibiotic tailored to her infection. We still need keep her sleepy so that she doesn't injure herself.

Nora will have a Physical Therapy evaluation next week.

Nicky is still enjoying his morning walk, but it was cold enough this morning that when I said "home" he trotted down the middle of the street to get back to warmth faster.

We're trying to build my headboard. My new mattress and adjustable frame arrive on Friday.

rmc28

Today would have been my mother's 79th birthday. It's been 3.5 years, I still miss her.

Her sister, my aunt, is in hospital following a stroke last week, and not expected to recover. My cousins are on their way to Australia (possibly there by now) and hoping to arrive in time to say goodbye.

I walked to work this morning in a downpour with angsty-sad music in my headphones, and let myself cry it out while no-one was watching. In the last few minutes of my walk, the sun briefly shone through the clouds, and the music algorithm played me something more upbeat. I took in the moment of beauty, and walked on.

conuly

And posting is rapid. Don't you need a distraction?

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Sibylla Bostoniensis

If you wanna know the future, simply look into the past

neighbors

Nurses Union Calls ICE Agents “Public Health Threat” After Alex Pretti Killing

Early Arthropods

D’oh!

In other news, I've been watching Killjoys with E

Medford snow emergency and parking

Good deed / public service reminder

Why didn't anybody tell me that She-Ra was going off Netflix in a month?

Double-Pronged Extension Cord

New possessions

I was reading a story in which a young character gets a new pair of glasses

ahaha

It's always more complicated

Occasional Poem by Jacqueline Woodson

I wonder if, despite my best efforts, I've managed to come down with a mild cold

Cost Savings

Brr! "14F, feels like 7"

Nora held her own weight!

Weather, emotional and actual

threesentenceficathon is open now

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January 2026