elisem | Reading

Specifically: I find myself in possession of both a superking duvet cover and a deep fitted double sheet that are mostly Genuinely Nice Cotton... and have both got holes worn through them in one specific place.

I have accepted about myself that I am not a person who will tolerate sleeping on patched bedsheets (because Textures). I am loathe to just hand them over to rag recycling. I am scared of trying to sew anything out of them, but might manage it with some encouragement.

I would greatly appreciate people Being Opinionated on this topic.

james_davis_nicoll

The Wolves Upon the Coast Grand Campaign, a bare-bones old-school tabletop roleplaying game by designer Luke Gearing.

Bundle of Holding: Wolves Upon the Coast

oursin

What I read

Finished Imperial Palace, v good, by 1930 Enoch Arnold had got into the groove of being able to maintain dramatic narrative drive without having to throw in millionaires and European royalty and sinister plots, but just the business of running a hotel and the interpersonal things going on.

Then took a break with Agatha Christie, Dumb Witness (Hercule Poirot, #17) (1937) - I slightly mark it down for having dreary old Hastings as narrator, but points for the murderer not being the Greek doctor.

Finished Grand Babylon Hotel, batshit to the last.

Discovered - since they are only on Kindle and although I occasionally get emails telling me about all the things that surely I will like to read available on Kindle, did they tell me about these, any more than the latest David Wishart? did they hell - that there are been two further DB Borton Cat Caliban mysteries and one more which published yesterday. So I can read these on the tablet and so far have read Ten Clues to Murder (2025) involving a suspect hit and run death of a member of a writers' group - the plot ahem ahem thickens.... Was a bit took aback by the gloves in the archives at the local history museum, but for all I know they still pursue this benighted practice.

Have also read, prep for next meeting of the reading group, Dorothy Richardson, Backwater (Pilgrimage, #2) (1916).

On the go

Recently posted on Project Gutenberg, three of Ann Bannon's classic works of lesbian pulp, so I downloaded these, and started I Am a Woman (1957) which is rather slow with a lot of brooding and yearning - our protag Laura has hardly met any women yet on moving to New York except her work colleagues and her room-mate so she is crushing on the latter, who is still bonking her ex-husband. But has now at least acquired a gay BF, even if he is mostly drunk.

Have just started DB Borton, Eleven Hours to Murder (2025).

Have also at least dipped into book for review and intro suggests person is not terribly well-acquainted with the field in general and the existing literature, because ahem ahem I actually have a chapter in big fat book which points out exactly those two contradictory strands - control vs individual liberation.

Up next

Well, I suspect the very recent Borton that arrived this week will be quite high priority!

mrissa

Moniquill Blackgoose, To Ride a Rising Storm. I'm usually a second book person, but this one took a minute to win me over. I think the bar was set so high by the first one that when the second one felt like "more of the same," I was disappointed. It is, however, going somewhere, and it finished up with a bang, and I am very excited for the third one. (But where it finished with a bang was more like a starting pistol. Do not expect closure here. This is very much a middle book.)

Lila Caimari, Cities and News. Kindle. A study of how newspapers evolved and influenced the culture in late 19th century South American cities, which was off the beaten Anglophone path and rather interesting, especially because the way that snowy places were exoticized pretty much exactly paralleled how these cities were exoticized in snowy places.

Colin Cotterill, Curse of the Pogo Stick, The Merry Misogynist, and Love Songs from a Shallow Grave. Rereads. And this, unfortunately, is where the series ends for me. I enjoyed Pogo Stick, and then the other two had mystery plots that were "serial killer because tormented intersex person" (REALLY STOP IT, these books came out in the 21st century, NOT OKAY) and "bitches be crazy, yo" (WELP). The mystery plots are not nearly as central to these mysteries as one might expect of, well, mysteries, but on the other hand they are integral to the book and not ignorable and I am done. When I read this series previously I endured these two in hopes that it would get better again, and now I know it doesn't. Well. Five books I like is more than most people manage.

Jeannine Hall Gailey, Field Guide to the End of the World. I still resonate less with prose poems than with other formats of poem, and this had several, but it was otherwise...unfortunately apropos, a worthy companion in our own ongoing ends of worlds.

Tove Jansson, Moominpappa's Memoirs. Kindle, reread. Charming and quirky as always, with some hilarious moments about memoir that went over my head when I was small.

Laurie Marks, Fire Logic, Earth Logic, Water Logic, and Air Logic. Rereads. I still really enjoy this series, but on the reread it was quite clear to me that water is very, very much the weakest element here, no contest. The water witches are not really portrayed as people, nobody with water affinity gets to be a character, they're very much the "oh yeah I guess we have more than three elements" element in this series. Water is the element I connect with the most strongly. I still like this series, I still think it's doing really good things with peace being an active rather than passive state and one that has to be made by imperfect humans--more unusual things than they should be. As with the Cotterill books above, the fact that it was a reread meant that I couldn't keep saying to myself, "Maybe there'll be more on this later," because there won't, the series is complete. But in contrast to the Cotterill it was complete in a way I still find satisfying.

Alice Evelyn Yang, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing. This is a family history novel with strong--in fact integral--fantastical elements, but only the realistic plot resolution is satisfying, not the fantasy plot at all. The fantasy elements are required for the plot to happen as portrayed, there's no chance they're only metaphors, but they only work as metaphors. Ah well. If you're up for a Chinese family history novel that goes into detail of the horrors of both the Japanese occupation and the Cultural Revolution, this one has really good sentences and paragraphs. But go in braced.

james_davis_nicoll

Classic SF was chock-full of dubious ideas; Martin Gardner supplied the antidote.

One Way to Immunize Yourself Against Pseudoscience and Other Nonsense

senmut posting in

communal_creators

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bookscorpion posting in

common_nature

The sun came out and everyone was enjoying it so much after more than a week of clouds and snowfall. This crow was taking a very energetic bath - look how far the water droplets are flying all around him!

pilottttt posting in

common_nature

james_davis_nicoll

Only witches hunt demons, all witches are women, and Uroro cannot be defeated by any woman. Uroro feels entirely safe, right until the world's first male witch defeats him.

Ichi the Witch, volume 1 by Osamu NIchi & Shiro Usazaki (Translated by Adrienne Beck)

sine_nomine

The person taking care of my house during this adventure sends me my mail once a week. I'd seen the packet from a couple weeks ago but put it aside knowing there was a bunch of stuff in it I actually wanted to look at.

Lo and behold: a notice dated 1/15 that the insurance company required more information from the surgeon before authorizing my hip replacement surgery. Note: said surgery was scheduled for the 23rd.

Also a note - the date of which I didn't notice - that declined the authorization for the replacement saying it wasn't medically necessary because it didn't meet several of the 9 or 10 criteria - ALL of which must be met to make it medically necessary - that were listed. And also that the hospital stay wasn't authorized because it could be done as outpatient or with a 23 hour stay as there were no comorbidities provided that would lead to the authorization of the stay.

Interestingly, there was *also* a note from the insurance company authorizing my stay at the rehab hospital for my non-medically necessary hip replacement.

Now first off: I *did* ask, repeatedly, if we'd gotten the pre-auth for the surgery and was assured we did not require one. Sounded very odd to me so I asked if we'd gotten the pre-auth for the hospital stay. Was told that's up to the nurse navigators (the ones I was not put in touch with until way too little time before the surgery). So I asked them if we'd gotten the pre-authorization for surgery and hospital stay.... which got the administrative nurse saying it was a good thing I asked because my surgery had been scheduled incorrectly and they were in the process of fixing it.

Secondly, I very specifically had expressed concern that the x-rays they took did not have a detailed report about the level of osteoarthritis, etc., as well as that my ADLs were radically affected by my hip issues (the notes said they were not affected, I wrote to them after the pre-op consult and said, "There's an error. Please fix." and they said, "There's no error."). Guess what two of the reasons for the declined authorization were?

Thirdly, if he proceeded with the surgery without getting the necessary pre-authorization AFTER I REPEATEDLY asked if the date had to move again because of a possible pre-auth issue (and after I reminded them that I DON'T LIVE HERE so, if it had to get delayed again, my stay here would be longer and cost lots of money) and I get a bill from the hospital? I'm sending it to his office SO fast and saying, "This one is on you; I raised a stack of flags ahead of time."

All that said, recovery seems to be going well. My rollator is too tall so I ordered one that has handles that can be set lower - but the one that arrived has a seat that doesn't lock down so it's unusable. Likely buying a new one before this one goes back. Which is unfortunate as I got it direct from the manufacture's "at home" site and it was priced way more affordably than from third party vendors... but I want it in hand so I can practice prior to the PT eval. Which was postponed because it was pouring and powerchair plus rain is no bueno. Thankfully, "tomorrow" (it's after midnight; it's technically today but I have not yet been to sleep and awakened again) it's going to be clear so I can get the sutures out and Friday it's going to be clear so I can get new labwork and see Dr. Hematology. Thank the Universe.

The next challenge is going to be getting PT to understand there is so much more to rehab than my hip, to figure out what physiatrist to see so I can get VERY long-overdue thoracic images taken, and then figure out what's next. Because, right now, research shows that it might take as long to recondition everything that has failed on my body (hip is probably 25 percent of the issues; no, Rehab people, it was NOT my hip that caused me to have issues with stairs!) as it did to decondition. Which means 7 or so years. Hip replacement is not the magic wand everyone said it would be. I knew that, even as I hoped otherwise. But unless my stamina comes back way faster than I think it will, and my ability to manage a rollator and so on over distance increases super significantly, powerchairs are not leaving my life any time soon. So yeah, that's another insurance hurdle.

To say nothing of the current reimbursement hurdles and so on. Fun times ahead. Onwards.

redbird

I realized over the weekend that I hadn't checked on those insurance/medical specialist referrals, and when I did check, they were all sitting in MyChart, but hadn't been sent to the insurance company. The insurance chat agent was able to tell me that yes, they need to be in their system, and gave me a fax number to give my GP's office. So I called this morning (yesterday having been a holiday) and asked my doctor's office to do that, urgently, because I'm seeing Dr. Awad tomorrow.

When nothing had happened by midday, Adrian suggested I call the insurance company and ask whether it would be OK if they received the referral after the appointment, on the theory that this probably happens a lot. So I called, and they said yes it would, so I'm going to cross my fingers, and didn't call to reschedule that appointment.

I also finally managed to talk to my Fidelity advisor, and set up a three-way call with him and BNY (where the inherited IRA is). That involved a lot of waiting on hold, and the agent saying he needed to check one more thing.... He then told me that it would take more time for them to figure out where that unexpected balance came from, and they had to figure that out before they could transfer the money. No, I don't know why: the balance information is from their system. So someone is supposed to call me back, hopefully soon, and then I hope they will either transfer the money to Fidelity, or be willing to send me a check for the balance and close the account.

It took me a little while to figure out why I was feeling worn out, but at least part of it is that I made multiple phone calls, and everything is still in process, if not in limbo. A bowl of Lizzy's "chocolate orgy" ice cream helped some.

On top of everything else, my gum is bothering me again ("again" because it's a problem for a day or two, then it's fine for a while, and then recurs).

kaberett

Yesterday afternoon I'd been discussing auditor traps. Yesterday evening we walked out of the supermarket and were confronted by

three signs across a blocked-off road: DIVERSION pointing right, ROAD CLOSED, DIVERSION pointing left

[description in alt text, better to follow]

ysabetwordsmith posting in

common_nature

Yesterday I shared photos from the House Yard and South Lot plus Savanna and Prairie Garden. Today I did a bit of yardwork that revealed fun new things. :D

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

yourlibrarian posting in

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March Meta Matters Challenge banner by thenewbuzzwuzz

March 1 is just weeks away, so that means the kickoff to this year's March Meta Matters Challenge will be taking place soon! The challenge involves locating and copying over meta you've created to a second site in order to ensure its preservation, plus there will be some prompts for creating new meta.

Feel free to ask questions here about the challenge, locations, etc. Otherwise subscribe to

marchmetamatterschallenge and look for our opening post on March 1!

sovay

I did not end up accompanying

rushthatspeaks and his child to the zoo this morning because I crashed so hard last night that I slept ten to eleven hours and am having difficulty remembering the day of the week, but he just dropped by with a

nineweaving in the car and brought me my Christmas present of a sweater in the pattern of the Minoan octopus flask from Palaikastro and the cup with the scale motif from Archanes: it's spectacular. I was able to give him the collected cartoons and comics and poems of Le Guin's Book of Cats (2025). I got to see photographs of Artic and fennec foxes, flamingos and peccaries, sloth and snow leopard, porcupine and poison dart frog. Having spent the prior portion of my afternoon in the excitement of calling doctors and paying bills, my evening's plans involve couch and books.

Current Music: The Pack a.d., "Sirens"

rachelmanija

Excellent dark fantasy about three women trapped in a medieval castle under siege. It reminded me a bit of Tanith Lee - it's very lush and decadent in parts - and a bit of The Everlasting. Fantastic female characters with really interesting relationships. The language is not strictly medieval-accurate but a lot of the characters' mindsets are, which is fun.

All I knew going in was that it was medieval, female-centric, and involved cannibalism. This gave me a completely wrong impression, which was that it was a sort of female-centric medieval Lord of the Flies in which everyone turns on each other under pressure and starts killing and eating each other. This is very nearly the opposite of what it's actually about, though there is some survival-oriented eating of the already-dead.

The three main characters are Phosyne, an ex-nun and mad alchemist with some very unusual pets that even she has no idea what they are; Ser Voyne, a female knight whose rigid loyalty gets tested to hell and back; and Treila, a noblewoman fallen on hard times and desperate to escape. The three of them have deliciously complicated relationships with each other, fully of shifting boundaries, loyalties, trust, sexuality, and love.

At the start, everyone is absolutely desperate. They've been trapped in the castle under siege for six months, the last food will run out in two weeks, and help does not seem to be on the way. Treila is catching rats and plotting her escape via a secret tunnel, but some mysterious connection to Ser Voyne is keeping her from making a break for it. Phosyne has previously enacted a "miracle" to purify the water, and the king is pressuring her to miraculously produce food; unfortunately, she has no idea how she did the first miracle, let alone how to conjure food out of nothing. Ser Voyne, who wants to charge out and fight, has been assigned to stand over Phosyne and make her do a miracle.

And then everything changes.

The setting is a somewhat alternate medieval Europe; it's hard to tell exactly how alternate because we're very tightly in the POV of the three main characters, and we only know what they're directly observing or thinking about. The religion we see focuses on the Constant Lady and her saints. She might be some version of the Virgin Mary, but though the language around her is Christian-derived, there doesn't seem to be a Jesus analogue. The nuns (no priests are ever mentioned) keep bees and give a kind of Communion with honey. Some of them are alchemists and engineers. There is a female knight who is treated differently than the male knights by the king and there's only one of her, but it's not clear whether this is specific to their relationship or whether women are usually not allowed to be knights or whether they are allowed but it's unusual.

This level of uncertainty about the background doesn't feel like the author didn't bother to think it out, but rather adds to the overall themes of the book, which heavily focus on how different people experience/perceive things differently. It also adds to the claustrophobic feeling: everyone is trapped in a very small space and additionally limited by what they can perceive. The magic in the book does have some level of rules, but is generally not well understood or beyond human comprehension. There's a pervasive sense of living in a world that isn't or cannot be understood, but which can only be survived by achieving some level of comprehension.

And that's all you should know before you start. The actual premise doesn't happen until about a fourth of the way into the book, and while it's spoiled in all descriptions I didn't know it and really enjoyed finding out.

Spoilers for the premise. ( Read more... )

Spoilers for later in the book: ( Read more... )

Probably the last third could have been trimmed a bit, but overall this book is fantastic. I was impressed enough that I bought all of Starling's other books for my shop. I previously only had The Luminous Dead, which I'm reading now.

Content notes: Cannibalism. Physical injury/mutilation. Mind control. A dubcon kiss. Extremely vivid descriptions of the physical sensations of hunger and starvation. Phosyne's pets do NOT die!

Feel free to put spoilers for the whole book in comments.

oursin

Have only just discovered that there is a new (came out in November) biography of Decca Mitford: Carla Kaplan, Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford.

Via a review in the latest Literary Review which is, alas, not fully online, sounds less than whelmed, and gives the impression that it may be a tad po-faced.

Yes, about Jessica Mitford, that great tease.

Can't find any other unpaywalled online reviews of any great credibility - there are some on GoodReads but they all sound to be from people who Nevererdofer previously.

So before I, that already have several of her own biographical works and essays, collections of letters etc upon my shelves, also the previous biography, spend moolah and time on this, I wonder if anyone has already read it and has opinions?

(Have just had thought that as far as I recall, Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd did on at least one occasion encounter Unity Mitford, while undercover in Germany: but not, I think, Decca &/or Esmond, anywhere in his exploits.)

james_davis_nicoll

What hope has 10th century Icelandic culture against an armed and moderately educated 20th century American?

The Man Who Came Early by Poul Anderson

ysabetwordsmith posting in

common_nature

These are the rest of the pictures I took today, from the savanna and prairie garden. (See the House Yard and South Lot.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: Teen
Length: 2492
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: dedkake on AO3
Themes: Inept in love, Pining, Five things, Friends to lovers

Summary: The thing is, he hadn’t really meant to say it. Not then. Not there. He hadn’t really ever even thought about it before, not in such specific terms. So, it’s as much of a shock to him as it is to anyone else.

or, Rodney's trying so hard and John just doesn't get it.

Reccer's Notes: This is a fun read that makes you want to hit them both upside the head just a little. Rodney keeps telling John how he feels (or trying to), and John keeps missing the point each time, so they're both inept in different ways. Until they aren't!

Fanwork Links: on purpose

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Elise Matthesen

January 2026

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Page Summary

kaberett - what does one do with Sad Bedsheets?
james_davis_nicoll - Bundle of Holding: Wolves Upon the Coast
oursin - Wednesday has fixed the date for doing the condom talk
mrissa - Books read, early February
james_davis_nicoll - One Way to Immunize Yourself Against Pseudoscience and Other Nonsense
senmut in communal_creators - On current events (apologies for the mentions of politics)
bookscorpion in common_nature - Crow Bath
pilottttt in common_nature - And another Istanbul cat.
james_davis_nicoll - Ichi the Witch, volume 1 by Osamu NIchi & Shiro Usazaki (Translated by Adrienne Beck)
sine_nomine - In the mail
redbird - unsatisfying phone calls (and web chats)
kaberett - particularly timely
ysabetwordsmith in common_nature - Photos: Flowerbeds
yourlibrarian in dw_community_promo - March Meta Matters Challenge 2026 Returning!
sovay - The water's depths can't kill me yet
rachelmanija - The Starving Saints, by Caitlin Starling
oursin - Have any dr rdrz come across this?
james_davis_nicoll - The Man Who Came Early by Poul Anderson
ysabetwordsmith in common_nature - Photos: Savanna and Prairie Garden
mific in fancake - SGA: on purpose by dedkake

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Elise Matthesen

Reading

what does one do with Sad Bedsheets?

Bundle of Holding: Wolves Upon the Coast

Wednesday has fixed the date for doing the condom talk

Books read, early February

One Way to Immunize Yourself Against Pseudoscience and Other Nonsense

Admin Post: On current events (apologies for the mentions of politics)

Crow Bath

And another Istanbul cat.

Ichi the Witch, volume 1 by Osamu NIchi & Shiro Usazaki (Translated by Adrienne Beck)

In the mail

unsatisfying phone calls (and web chats)

particularly timely

Photos: Flowerbeds

March Meta Matters Challenge 2026 Returning!

The water's depths can't kill me yet

The Starving Saints, by Caitlin Starling

Have any dr rdrz come across this?

The Man Who Came Early by Poul Anderson

Photos: Savanna and Prairie Garden

SGA: on purpose by dedkake

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January 2026

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