Hard Things

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Thoughts on Kismesissitude

I've been exploring the new community 100quadrantedships recently. It features the quadrants of troll romance from Homestuck. They have to do with whether a relationship is sexual/romantic (concupiscent) or platonic (conciliatory), and based primarily on positive (red) or negative emotions (black).

"A Black Concupiscent relationship represents the Caliginous Quadrant. The romance is called Kismesissitude, and most humans fail to understand it."
-- Troll Romance Analysis

A link on 100quadrantedships pointed to this interesting article, "A Guide to Healthy Kismesissitude" by Ask Toxie on Tumblr. I think that there's more overlap between human romance and troll romance than most people realize, but humans don't always put a name on it, which leads to people overlooking it and/or doing it badly. The patterns are still there. So I thought it would be fun to talk about this.

( Read more... )

Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy, cold, and damp.  Yesterday it drizzled, and for a little while at night it was trying to snow but the ground was too wet for it to stick.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a flock of sparrows and at least two cardinals in the forest garden.  It's three-bird cold today, meaning that three of the sparrows will share one side of the hopper feeder without fighting.  The cardinals were chasing each other, though, so I couldn't get a good look at them.
 

Poem: "Something Infinitely Healing"

This poem is spillover from the November 7, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from curiosity, chanter1944, and readera. It also fills the "Seed" square in my 11-1-23 card for the Drabble Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to the Dr. Infanta and Broken Angels threads of the Polychrome Heroics series. It is the second in a triptych, between "Bring Another into the Light" and "The Little Things Are the Big Things."

( Read more... )

Poetry Fishbowl Themes for Early 2024

This poll covers the ideas proposed in the recent call for themes. Everyone is eligible to vote in this poll. I will keep it open until at least Friday afternoon. If there are clear answers then, I'll close it. Otherwise I may leave it open a little longer. If you don't have a Dreamwidth account, you can vote in an anonymous comment or email to me, but include some kind of handle to distinguish yourself.

For this poll, you can vote for as many themes as you find appealing. I recommend that you don't vote for all of them, since that makes it harder to whittle down the list. The themes are arranged in alphabetical order.

Some of these could use a little explanation:

Gengineering -- genetic engineering or similar biohacking methods.

Image Prompts -- give me a picture instead of text as a prompt.

Like a Normal Person -- normalizing things that are often scorned, e.g. "He should get therapy like a normal person."

Protopia -- a society that gets a little bit better each year.


Here are your options ...

( Read more... )

Character notes for "Something Infinitely Healing"

Here are the character notes for "Something Infinitely Healing."

( Read more... )

Setting notes for "Something Infinitely Healing."

Here are the setting notes for "Something Infinitely Healing."

( Read more... )

Content notes for "Something Infinitely Healing"

These are the content notes for "Something Infinitely Healing."

( Read more... )

Today's Smoothie

Today we made a smoothie with:

1 cup almond milk
1 cup Brown Cow vanilla yogurt
1 banana
2 tablespoons Kirkland Signature Mixed Nut Butter with Seeds
1 tablespoon honey
dash of pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup ice

I quite like the mixed nut butter. It has a nice, dark, roasty flavor. They're not kidding about the separation, though; there was about an inch of oil at the top before I stirred it. This is made from almonds, cashews, pumpkin seeds, chia Seeds, amd flax seeds. I think this would make a great substitute for peanut butter, especially for cooking where you want a strong savory flavor.

The smoothie came out light as usual with this base version, and the mixed nut butter has a nice complex flavor. I think it picks up the pumpkin pie spice better than other nut butters we have tried.