one, lonely donkey chewing on an electric fence

so it's been two weeks since surgery #2 and it feels like forever ago and also yesterday. my sister took me to the hospital, waited around, took me home. i don't have any fun stories like last time except i complimented the anesthesiology resident on her nail art and she said "they're fish!" all excited. and yes, her nails were painted like different fish. they even had eyes. they were very cute. otherwise everything was very straightforward and my sister and i came home after they released me from recovery and we called mom and my sister had some potato salad (she brought it over) and after she left i was finally hungry enough to finish it. (it's very good potato salad. little red potatoes, mint, garlic, olive oil. came from the silver palate cookbook which is extremely 80s and which i believe she stole from our parents' house when they moved down to florida.) my surgery was at 3p and because you can't eat after 10p the night before i was expecting to be STARVING by the time they rolled me into the or but i was not. surprise!

recovery #2 was easier and way less painful than recovery #1. i didn't get a prescription for painkillers because i didn't need them. and then i was on vacation finally.

saw the gum doctor before surgery #2 and i need gum grafts. :| not until october tho. i am still not thrilled.

anyway. fun shit i've done since the last time i posted:

• went to birthday brunch for friend a followed by a pass around a local flea market (a short pass because it was hot out and the flea market was in a parking lot). good food, cool shit.


• took a doughnut walking tour of boston ending at a twenty-four-hour bakery in the north end that i know for its cannoli and now also its delicious doughnuts.


• saw the odyssey and liked it but didn't love it. i'm not a classicist and i'm happy to give christopher nolan some leeway because it's his movie and he can adapt the story however he wants but that said i think matt damon and charlize theron were miscast, jon bernthal was an... interesting choice, and the greeks wearing pants totally threw me out of the story. pants. i do however appreciate that mr nolan is a big believer in practical effects so there was remarkably little cgi.


• saw one night only which i would have liked a lot more if i could've gotten over the premise. callum turner and monica barbaro had some nice chemistry and a lot of it was very cute but i just couldn't with the "unmarried straight folks can only have sex on one specific day each year". i had questions.


• toured the jason russell house which was the site of the bloodiest battle on the first day of the revolutionary war. they preserved the bullet holes in the house. mrs russell and the kids fled the british and when she came back she discovered eleven dead militiamen laid out on her kitchen floor. the floors in the house are original altho i suspect the kitchen floor has been replaced. jason russell's granddaughter was still living there 100+ years later.


• went to concord and took a revolutionary war/19th century writers walking tour and learned that thoreau started out as a teacher but after like three weeks the headmaster visited his class and announced his kids were unruly and needed to be disciplined. "discipline" meant "corporal punishment" and since henry david didn't believe in that he quit. i learned some very location specific revolutionary war history (partly involving about ninety british soldiers staring down about four hundred colonial militiamen and no doubt thinking "someone has made a tactical error and it's probably us") and took a bunch of pictures and it was educational and great.


• went to salem with my sister for the peabody essex museum (historical clothes! art! culture!), an early dinner, and a nice walk down interesting streets to find a candy store.


• drove an hour and forty minutes for lunch and a used bookstore. >.< (the book mill. books i don't need in a place i can't find.) bought books! came home.


• went into boston proper and wandered around for a bit because i could.


• went up to rockport with my sister to walk around, admire the ocean, eat an early dinner, buy chocolate, and come home.


• weather was great for most of it (gray and overcast for concord but at least it didn't rain) and i got very used to having the day off. fortunately reentry into work wasn't bad.

mattel is making a whitney houston barbie. it only took them twenty years.

this is news in china more than other places but oreo introduced kfc spicy chicken cookies. i think i speak for everyone when i say what the fuck, oreo.

i know this was almost a month ago but a cyclist in the women's tour de france was almost taken out by a bystander in a panda suit. not what you expect in a bike race.

have some pics of the lunar eclipse.

i've been listening to assorted versions of jolene and clips of dolly singing herself so i have to share dolly singing with kermit the frog. watch for the chickens.

and finally, in honor of the us open starting, admire the nail art. (i'm not a tennis person but i love me some themed nail art.)

Where did it even go? It's definitely feeling like fall the last couple of days -- chilly nights and cool days, leaves turning yellow. We had a late spring and now we're apparently looking at an early fall, after a very cool, rainy summer; evidently this has been the coldest year for Fairbanks (by average temperatures) since 1972. Which is completely wild with almost everywhere else experiencing record heat. Thanks a lot, El Niño! I guess.

I managed to avoid the Fic in a Box FOMO. festivids is currently in nominations. I am, as usual, on the fence about it because it's a big time commitment, but I have had a great time every year I've done it, so ... we'll see.

I haven't been around much the last couple of months, but I want to be more present in September. I have been writing little snippets of fic for both no_true_pair and Whumptember, and I plan to post those more or less on the day of the prompt they're associated with. Due to being signed up with multiple fandoms *and* using multiple prompt lists, there's some overlap on days, but I have about two week's worth of short fills, I think! So there's that to look forward to.

But also I just kinda want to be somewhere I can talk to people again. Most of my random browsing lately has been on Facebook and Tumblr, both of which are great for a flow of brain-distracting entertainment but awful for actual conversations. I don't hate either of them (from a user perspective, I mean), but I'm very glad old-school blog-style non-algorithmic social media is still a thing for however long it lasts.

I survived pickleball with the bosses! (Well, not my boss, since she is still recovering, but the rest of the c-suite.) It would not have been my chosen "fun" activity, but once we got there, I had a good time. My knees, otoh, are very unhappy with me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

*

Good afternoon everybody!

Did you guys get some writing done today?

• Yes
• No
• Not yet
• I've thought about it
• I'm taking a break/too busy to write

Title: For a While
Fandom: Critical Role: Campaign 1
Rating: G
Length: ~1400
Content notes: drinking
Author notes: Written for the Prompt glass

Summary: Percy wonders what makes him stick with Vox Machina, and maybe it's the small things that give an answer.


( For a while )

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairings: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Svetlana Vetrova, Yuna Hollander
Rating: Explicit
Length: 6087
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply. Shane is probably unfaithful to Rose - he doesn't seem to think their relationship's over at that point in the fic.
Creator Links: tackytiger on AO3
Themes: Pining, Ambiguous relationships, (not really) Unrequited love, Unreliable narrator, Canon LGBTQ+ characters

Summary: Does it count as Shane Hollander walking Ilya like a dog if Ilya buckles the collar on himself and hands Hollander the leash?

Reccer's Notes: Tackytiger describes the fic as a small character piece looking at Ilya's feelings at various points in his life. It's not tagged for "pining" but to me, that's very much part of Ilya's feelings. There are dog metaphors throughout, with young Ilya longing for a dog (but knowing his father would never allow it), then, in the Rose era, Ilya longs for Shane and snatches any scrap of Shane he can. It ends at the Cottage with their relationship restored and acknowledged, but there's still a sense of Ilya being dependent on Shane's attention and affection, still feeling like a stray who got lucky. Poignant, and really well written.

Fanwork Links: Lick, Lick - locked to AO3.
And there's a podfic by me.

Title: Squares for a Blanket
Fandom: Original
Rating: G
Length: Collage of 6 photos
Summary: Various squares for a blanket I am very slowly knitting

Title: What Was Missing
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Varian, Willaway.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the series.
Summary: They miss their friends, but they’ve found something they hadn’t known they were missing
Word Count: 350
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 525: Amnesty 84, using Challenge 496: Missing.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.

Title: photography
Fandom: none
Rating: G
Content notes: None apply
Summary: icons of Chris Pine taking photos or looking at photos (with cameo by Patrick J. Adams)


( photography )

Title: Work experience
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, OCs
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,122 words
Content notes: Set in my Torchwood futureverse
Author notes: Written for Challenge 525 - Amnesty using Challenge 136 - Hit the wall
Summary: A family dinner night becomes a dramatic confrontation.

( Read more... )

Dendrology (4327 words) by ErinPtah
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pet Shop of Horrors (Manga)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Count D/Leon Orcot
Characters: Count D, Leon Orcot
Additional Tags: Clothed Sex, Blow Jobs, Fingers in Mouth, Cuddling & Snuggling, Sleepy Cuddles, Count D Has Plant-Like Genitalia, Leon Orcot Is Looking Respectfully, Magic Mermaid Amnesia, Pet Shop of Horrors Chapter 26: Donor, Pet Shop of Horrors Chapter 27: Duty, Pet Shop of Horrors Chapter 31: Deep, 1990s, POV Leon Orcot
Summary:

So I had this idea to write a PWP about D having plant parts...and somehow ended up with 4300 words of "D and Leon have a bunch of hot sex while D is still actively hiding the fact that he has plant parts."

August recs set ahoy:

unfitforsociety has been updated for August 2026 with 18 recs in 3 fandoms:

* 10 Heated Rivalry
* 7 Batfamily
* 1 Ride or Die

***

Today's cooking was okay - the chocolate chip banana bread scones didn't taste banana-y enough to me, but I ate one while it was still warm, so maybe being totally cool will enhance the banana taste? Also, I made them too big and only got 9 instead of 12 as the recipe suggests. *hands* I have extra mashed bananas in the freezer now, so there could be a next time to get it right.

Also, you probably know this, but just in case you don't, if you want banana bread or something else really banana-y but only have less ripe bananas on hand, you can roast them, and it will intensify the flavor and work like the soft overripe ones you'd normally use.

And today's stir fry was easy but kind of bland? Maybe it's on me because I didn't bother to add the suggested pinch of salt at the end, because soy sauce is usually salty enough for me? But I thought the garlic and ginger combo would have more flavor punch and it all kind of amalgamated into something that was okay instead of great. But I still have pork and cabbage left uncooked to try again another night this week! So again, there's the opportunity for tinkering and improvement.

***

After a couple of busy days stringing together series of errands, I have had a lovely peaceful time today. And I have a fridge full of food, several nice breads, extra keys for my new door lock, nice shiny teeth, etc etc. I also managed to acquire and deliver my dad's birthday card and present - I was too late realising it was coming up to get it posted, so I had to take it in person. However, that worked out quite well; Mum had a possibly-bad-news scan a couple of days ago (might still be fine, going for a follow-up scan of a different kind in the next few weeks) so I combined the trip with picking up some flowers for her from my siblings and me, and then spent the afternoon with them before heading to church.

While I was there Mum also handed me a folder of random documents - they had a box with family stuff in that got turned upside down years ago so that everything got mixed up, and she finally sorted through it while looking for something and decided that it was time that we had our own school reports, etc, rather than her keeping them! I had a flick through; lots of school reports, my first lost tooth in a little envelope I'd addressed to the tooth fairy, the ed psych report from when I was six... the reports were funny, there's a throughline from infant school right to sixth form of "physical stuff: yes, she's very bad at it, but does try fairly hard" and also any number of comments along the lines of "brings her impressive general knowledge to bear on [subject]". Clearly my ability to introduce random facts into any conversation is one that goes back to my earliest years. Although I did like the one that said I needed more encouragement to participate in group discussions, which is definitely not something anyone has said about me in the last twenty years.

And it's a long weekend, so I still get tomorrow off! I'm going for lunch with a friend, then have two more of the public pop-up choir-and-orchestra concerts, which will inevitably cumulatively vanish most of the day, but that'll be fun. We added in a last-minute Dolly Parton tribute, so we're also singing 9-to-5, not that anyone will hear us over the orchestra.

The music choices this year aren't quite as successful, I think - normally they start with the 20th Century Fox fanfare and the Star Wars opening theme, which sounds absolutely amazing and is audible right from down on the platform never mind in the station concourse, but this year they went for Gershwin's "Strike Up the Band" which just does not cut through in the same way, although it's quite fun from up close. And two of the pieces we're in have quiet bits that I could barely hear from the back of the chorus clump, never mind from halfway down the concourse. Still, all the stuff I could hear sounded great. Hopefully the audiences enjoy it.

The temperatures have gone down to much more reasonable levels, and we're actually getting rain regularly, which is nice! (I spent yesterday morning wearing my raincoat, radical) But there's been a startling number of thunderstorms, lots of really huge thunderclaps and rumbling around - it reminds me of going on family holiday in the Dordogne, lightning storms every couple of days. At least now things are wet enough that it shouldn't go starting more fires. The grass outside my bedroom window is springing green already, so resilient.

Hey guys!

It's the start of a new week, so what are your plans?

• Continue working on current WIP
• Start on another WIP (this can be new ones, or old one filed away)
• Taking a break for now
• I have plans this week, so writing might not be in the cards.