conuly | Recent Entries

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I lied, trusting you knew
I could not lie to you.
Beloved friend, I lied and am forgiven; but I
Cannot forgive that you believed my lie.

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Link

Just another freak weather event, nothing to worry about!

Yay! Now time to head outside and -

oh. Air quality is even worse than yesterday. Nevermind then.

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The regal eagle sits alone
upon a tree that serves as throne.
But sometimes when the eagle flies
(though this might come as some surprise)
a mob of crows may—wing to wing—
together drive away that king.
Democracy in beak and claw
finds regal eagle's fatal flaw.
And is that legal? I don't know.
You'll have to ask a mobster crow.

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Link

and a bunch of you were like "no, that's not a thing" and I was like "I can prove it, just as soon as I see it again on film"? Well, I've barely watched any TV or anything since then, but I've now come across two clips. In each one, it's about thirty seconds in.

We've got Rose in The Golden Girls (or the spinoff, whatever), and we've also got Nathanial in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Now, if you're going to say that the second doesn't count, as it's from a song in a musical, I do hear you. I just don't agree - I think that portion is clearly less-choreographed as a song-and-dance and more intended to look like natural speech. I'm not arguing that point with anybody either. You don't need to agree with me. That's why I posted two clips. More will come if and as I see them.

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We should all be concerned.

( Ahem! )

The real problem is not that it's hot in the summer, it's that it's not cooling down at night. Hot in the summer is what we expect. Not cooling down at night is what kills people.

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OP: Hey, this quote from Harry Potter says "Harry is just as sane as you or I", is that a correct way of phrasing this?

Person one: Just take away the second person! Then you'll know what's correct!

Me: That's not relevant or useful here. Both "as X as I" and "as X as me" are correct.

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and then, in the thread right above that one, we have:

Person two: Just take away the second person! Then you'll know what's correct! It's just that simple!

Me: That's not relevant or useful here. Both "as X as I" and "as X as me" are correct.

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It is astonishing how the study of the English language can get some people so riled up and yet, so unbelievably unwilling to learn anything. And what's really astonishing is that, in both cases, they absolutely started it. You'd think I might start it one of these times, but apparently not.

so many people are expressing concern that our beloved 11 year old talks about how much he enjoys cooking and - okay, yes, we all know he has an abused child backstory, but they don't know that! 11 years old is a perfectly reasonable age to know how to cook, or to enjoy it as a hobby! Lots of kids that age can cook and bake!

It's deeply annoying. The writer clearly is making some assumptions there, and I do not like that assumption.

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Watch on YouTube

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This has to have been an EARLY scifi novel. 80s- to early 00s at the latest.

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She's fine, no worries - well, not fine fine, she's at the hospital, but it's nothing to worry about.

Taking the bus back from the hospital always gets me thinking about Hurricane Sandy. They named a corner after those two boys. They'd be in high school now, or even entering college. It's easy to judge their mother - and don't get me wrong, I do judge her, because she made every possible mistake from before the storm even hit, starting with not evacuating - but people do dumb stuff all the time and it usually works out just fine. People don't usually die because they did something stupid, they don't usually lose their kids over it.

It's been rainy too. It's really just a maudlin way to start a week.

But I still think, every time I take that bus from the hospital, that those kids should've gotten to grow up, and instead they didn't even get to go trick-or-treating that year.

The moral of this post, inasmuch as there even is one, is that if your area is under an evacuation order, or ought to be, fucking evacuate. Or if you've decided to shelter in place, shelter in place. Don't try to evacuate after the storm is already upon you. That's how it all goes wrong.

It's just not working most of the time?

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but at least it's cooled down!

(I always picture all this rain after a heat wave like somebody reaching up and literally wringing out the damp air.)

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but they really need to.

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( All of these links have been sitting around for ages, so they may be a bit old )

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

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Happy 4th of July

and only came up to my (attic) bedroom to get my clothes after the sun had gone down. And to use my computer once the room cooled a bit.

Anybody want to guess how hot it was up here before I turned on the a/c?

( Drumroll please...! )

Please, everybody, stay cool.

But at least it's July, so it won't be unseasonable. It'll be very seasonable, and the seasoning is hot.

Stay cool out there!

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I fell into bed after a double at 9am, knowing I had another overnight tonight.

At 1ish, different manager calls and asks if I can do the afternoon shift. Because I’m not awake, I say yes - and awaken at 3pm wondering what the hell I signed up for and why. But you can’t call out at 3 and say “lol, nope, I wasn’t awake”. I mean, you can, but nobody will be happy about it, so I came in, and promptly stubbed my pinky toe.

The pain was excruciating and not getting better, and I was starting to think I’d have to call out of the second shift on the grounds of incompetence… but then I went to take my sock off so I could look at it and I guess that I had wedged my sock onto my toenail in some way when I stubbed my toe and now it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Also, they finally brought out everybody’s summer clothes, and if this seems late to you, that’s because it is late. I set aside some of the winter stuff to stay out just in case….

Guys. This is the perfect gift for a friend with cats.

ALL my friends have cats! I need to put this on my gift list and buy, like, a dozen copies right away!

Sigh

I had one question when reading the first book, which was “are we gonna have to wait until the third for our boys to get over their issues and make out” and the answer, now that I’ve read the second, is “apparently”.

Also, how exactly do Romeo and Juliet pivot to violent revolution and why wasn’t this play firmly banned? It’s like the grim dark setting is set design, guys.

(And also supremely distracting irritation at certain coworkers who were late and/or had left the kitchen an enormous disaster for me) I managed to forget to clock out of work on Wednesday and forget to clock in Saturday midnight. And then not realize either until it occurred to me Saturday while sleeping at home that I hadn't clocked out....

I put in some requests and I think it's all fixed but omg I feel dumb.

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we are told the emperor has a “lambent” gaze.

To be fair, that’s just the word the fictional author would pick, but…. (At least it’s just his gaze and not his orbs.)

When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs
I am compelled to conclude
That man is the superior animal.

When I consider the curious habits of man
I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.

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Link

Somehow, you can always tell when they're in Texas. It's little things, like the fact that Texans are congenitally incapable of surviving in a space that is not wall-to-ceiling covered in Texas flags and Texas outlines and Lone Stars and - if they're daring - prints of bluebells and/or longhorns.

Just in case they get amnesia and forget where they are or, in the case of expats like my dad, where they're from.

Texas, y'all.

I wonder, sometimes, if Texans who have never been out of state realize just how weird this all is. Like, if I had even a single NYS flag or NYS outline, people would think I was psychotic. It was strange enough to have our subway map shower curtain, and that was actually helpful.

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Who are these masked birds?
Not Robin Hoods,
for they live in
the open woods.
They only deal
in stolen goods
like berry futures,
cedar cones,
and sweet, sweet, fruit
(but leave the stones).
Insects they catch
on the fly
when swarms of them
go buzzing by.
No need to worry,
moan. or fret.
Your valuables
they will
not
get.

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Link to the poem

The bird itself

I've had to comb Callie with my own comb. My god, that girl can shed!

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Seriously, what have I done to deserve that?

but as I was at the corner store somebody poked his head in the store and said "So, I still can't get nothing?" and then, as the cashier picked up the phone "C'mon, you're calling the cops on me again? You already called them on me!"

Well, okay, if he already called them (20 minutes ago, as the phone conversation made clear) then there is no need to ask if you are welcome in the store, because almost anybody could tell you that the answer is no. Whether he was right to call or wrong to call, he's still not going to let you buy anything at this time.

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Would you like to throw a stone at me?
Here, take all that’s left of my peach.

Blood-red, deep:
Heaven knows how it came to pass.
Somebody’s pound of flesh rendered up.

Wrinkled with secrets
And hard with the intention to keep them.

Why, from silvery peach-bloom,
From that shallow-silvery wine-glass on a short stem
This rolling, dropping, heavy globule?

I am thinking, of course, of the peach before I ate it.

Why so velvety, why so voluptuous heavy?
Why hanging with such inordinate weight?
Why so indented?

Why the groove?
Why the lovely, bivalve roundnesses?
Why the ripple down the sphere?
Why the suggestion of incision?

Why was not my peach round and finished like a billiard ball?
It would have been if man had made it.
Though I’ve eaten it now.

But it wasn’t round and finished like a billiard ball;
And because I say so, you would like to throw something at me.

Here, you can have my peach stone.

- San Gervasio

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Link

but I am certain that the lieutenant’s eyes are not lambent.

Somebody needs to remove that word from the word a day calendars, I swear. Replace it with uxoricide or inchoate.

Welp, I'm convinced. Let's get that hard-working horse some cake!

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Either the Knicks won or… I can’t actually imagine an or for this sentence.

Go Knicks!

and she said we still have them "because what if the dryer breaks" and I thought to myself "oh, yeah, that's gonna come back to haunt us" but I didn't say anything for fear of making it worse and today - the dryer broke!

*headdesk*

This is Jenn's fault. I will stand by that.

The first repair appointment I could make is next week, but that's okay, we won't have enough money until next week anyway.

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Jane Yolen, Author of 450 Books Including The Devil's Arithmetic, Dies at 87

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and you all should catch up on the entire season so you can listen to it when it comes out for real. There are transcripts.

Also, they gave out stickers, so now I have something to slap over the Nazi sticker that just appeared by the train station.

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1. This author is clearly pretty young. Still, they won't be half-bad once they get a little more experience.

2. Wow, this author's note is unhinged

3. and long

4. and not apparently connected to anything omg

5. Oh, wait, she's in the 7th grade!? Well, now I definitely won't leave any sort of comment about whatever the hell that was!

6. Still, she's definitely a better writer than I thought if she's producing this at the age of 12. (The fic, not the author's note.)

Morning, the glistening
grass draws me into the day,
as if new meant separate
from the day before—

and I, having that human part
that can be transfixed by bauble or blade,
limp out again, a believer,
into memory’s emerald glint.

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Link

is that it was too big for the planter, and now it's broken the pot and we may not be able to save the plant :(

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So excited!

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Which I can sum up for you as "They went on one date a decade and a half ago and have been obsessed with each other ever since. Also, something terrible happened to Boston and everybody therein."

(It got sent to the moon. I'm just going to assume everybody died almost before they had time to realize.)

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Yay!

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We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

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Link

And I slept all day, too. I'm gonna start this post, but I'll finish it when I get back from this shift, so by that time I will either be awake or even more sleepy.

Edit: I was awake! But I hung out with E all day, so.

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Sometimes when people are talking in real life, or you can see this on TV shows and in movies, they do a very quick knee bend. Why do we do this? Sufficient googling answered the question of "Why do we click our tongues" (it's a discourse marker, thanks) but I haven't narrowed this one down yet and I can't figure it out by reasoning and observation of my own and others' behavior.

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but judging by the stubby little tail and the scoop claws, this poor little dead animal on my sidewalk was a mole, not a mouse as I first guessed.

Not a mark on it, either - you'd think it just crawled up out of its nest and died right there in front of my house.

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