johncomic

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I washed the hemmed pants yesterday and put on a pair today. Very close to good but they need to go up a half inch more so I'm very glad I put the brakes on the project. I'll correct the rest.

Yesterday the pool seemed a little cool. Today I went down for a swim and it was FUCKING COLD. Turned out someone let the boiler go out. Nice. Not. I got a good 20 minutes in before I gave up the freezing ghost. Tomorrow's volleyball is now in jeopardy as it takes a while to heat the pool back up. But, at least it's a weekday/work day so the staff is here and on it.

So all this talk about proof of citizenship for voting got me thinking... I do not have a valid passport. I have an old one so I suspect that getting a new one wouldn't be a gynormous mountain to climb just a PIA and $. I've got no use for a passport - I ain't goin' no where. I have a birth certificate. It's a photo copy - literally a photo of the original. It was how they gave you copies of original documents in the olden days. Black with cepia colored text. BUT it reflects the name I was born with which is not the name I have used for the past 50 years. I do not have a marriage certificate. So I dug around in the Burke County, North Carolina internet of records and found me. Well, I found the book number and page number that our marriage was recorded on in the county records. I stopped there.

By the time Trump and his troops pass any law requiring me to prove my name and citizenship, and said law gets through the legal battles necessary to make it a reality, I'll be 109 years old or older and not being able to vote will likely not be up there on my top 10 list of things to worry about.

I am really sleepy for some reason this morning. I slept fine last night so I'm not sure what the deal is.

For some unknown (to me) reason, the fire door at the end of hall shut a little bit ago. Probably some alarm tripped somewhere. But, the main problem is that it's driving Jim Across The Hall crazy. He can't deal with the door closed. He keeps coming in to tell me it's still closed. I've taken him out there and showed him how to open it. He does not need it open. He's not going anywhere. But, still... I think this will be our theme this morning.

But, first, I need to read Bonny's newspapers and then get to hemmin'!

soemand

Yesterday I tried a new approach to music discovery: feeding my eclectic library of 2,000‑plus tracks into a commercial LLM and asking it to respond with something I might like. No training involved — just pattern‑matching based on what I shared. The first recommendation, Avalon by Roxy Music, completely missed the mark for me. But the second suggestion was a revelation: Judee Sill’s 1974 album Heart Food, a record I’d somehow never crossed paths with.

Sill’s life was as intricate and troubled as her songwriting. She grew up in a turbulent home, spent time in reform school, and later struggled with addiction and poverty. Yet out of all that chaos came music with a strange, luminous clarity — spiritual without being sentimental, ambitious without losing its intimacy. Her early death meant her work never reached the audience it deserved, which makes stumbling onto her now feel like uncovering a quiet, overlooked treasure.

ysabetwordsmith

This poem came out of the March 17, 2026 Bonus Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by

librarygeek for Gwinnie, a pit bull mix and a good dog. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.

Warning: This poem features impending animal death of natural causes. HANKIE WARNING.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

If you're still shopping the Bonus Fishbowl, now's the time to make your selections. I've already finished 7 poems besides the freebie, and I've still got a couple left to do.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Depression fatigue appears at the cellular level in brain and blood

Scientists have identified an unusual energy signature in young adults with depression: cells in both the brain and blood appear highly active at rest but lose ground when demand rises.

The finding recasts fatigue as a measurable feature of the illness, one that may surface before treatment choices become clearer.

One of the biggest challenges with mental health is that almost all diagnoses rely on abstract rather than concrete assessments. It's usually done by self-reporting or observation, which is neither precise nor objective, unlike most illnesses that have scientific tests. So finding any kind of biomarker is extremely useful.

Current Mood: busy

soemand

“Springtime weather…”

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and hot. It is 85°F already. >_<

I fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, several brown-headed cowbirds, and a mourning dove.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- We hauled the first three garden bags to the old picnic table. It's 86°F now and too hot to do everything at once. :/

EDIT 3/22/26 -- We hauled the next three garden bags to the old picnic table.

The first grape hycacinth is blooming randomly in the middle of the house yard, pollinated by tiny native bees.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- I did a bit more work outside.

It's 87°F now, which is just ridiculous for March.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- We hauled the giant bag of raised bed soil to the side of the garden shed, where it's meant to fill in a hollow area.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- I put a few scoops of composted manure in each of the top and bottom row of large pots along the north side of the new picnic table. This bag wasn't broken down as fully as usual. :/

I stepped out the door and it was cold. I checked the temperature: 57°F. Yes, it dropped 30 degrees is another an hour. For fucksake.

The first purple violet and the apricot tree are blooming.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

It is now 47°F with howling wind. 0_o

EDIT 3/22/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night. The weather has been two different kinds of crappy all day.

EDIT 3/22/26 -- It got down just below freezing overnight.

Current Mood: busy

bill_schubert

My friends who missed their Italy trip with the passport problem left yesterday on a consolation trip to the Grand Canyon. So I'm watching chickens and cats. And deer. The mornings this time of year are just lovely and it is nice to be able to go out where there is a couple of acres of land to commune:

PXL_20260322_133236208.LONG_EXPOSURE-02.ORIGINAL~2

The deer won't come close but love the corn they get. And the chickens are in major egg laying mode now the light has returned. They went for months with zero eggs and are now dropping half a dozen a day. I've got friends who need eggs fortunately.

And there are two cats that are, well, cat like. I give them treats and fill their food and water and clean their litter. And pat them on their heads.

I'll be back there this afternoon. When it gets darkish the chickens go into their coop. They make it easy.

I've got some watermelon I'll give them tomorrow. Makes for good pictures.

It's kind of like watching someone's baby and they you can give it back to them. They like having me watch the place and it is pretty easy.

susandennis

Bonny always offers me her newspapers when she is out of town. I recently found out that the truth is her subscriptions are tied to a phone number she no longer has and making any changes promises to be a herculean task so... me. Which is fine. She gets the Seattle Times and the Wall Street Journal. I actually enjoy the Wall Street Journal. Last year I almost thought I'd get a subscription myself - digital, of course - but never did. Now we're back. The Sunday Seattle Times is no longer even a shadow of its former self but at least now I know I'm not missing anything. And the trash room is right next door.

I hemmed pants yesterday. Hemming black pants is not as much fun as you might imagine. I only got four pair done. There are so many more to do. If I were smart, I'd wear and then wash the ones I have done and once I'm sure they are fine, continue on. I think I'll do just that but I'm not going to put away my supplies. I'll leave them out as incentive to pick up the project once the proof is in.

Coming back from the pool this morning, there was a team of first responders coming in with a gurney. The had come in the wrong entrance and one of the residents had led them to the correct elevator. That resident is a man I know. Even knowing he has absolutely ZERO sense of humor, I conversationally as we were walking down the hall "This place is really hard to navigate when you've never been here." "It sure is AND they even had the wrong date on the brunch menu this morning." Yeah, life saving first responder misdirection and an incorrect date on a menu - equal horrors fer sure. (Sunday is the ONLY day they serve brunch so even the big clues aren't enough for him, I guess.)

Oh, there goes my friend, Maggie, out with her great granddaughter and her dogs. Maggie is very able bodied (her husband has Parkinsons) and lithe. Today she's got on very attractive slim jeans and boots. It is hard to wrap my head around a Great Grandmother is slim jeans and boots, but there she is. Neither one of my grandmothers ever even wore pants in public. I mean what if someone saw them????

Major League Baseball starts on Thursday. So this will be the last Sunday til Fall with no baseball game.

I have good TV to watch today and knitting to do and there is a puzzle going in the elbow. So my day is set. Guess I'll get it started.

mellowtigger

I saw that there was another No Kings rally scheduled for the last weekend in March. I thought, "Oh, I'd probably go to the protest if I didn't need to work that day."

Then I saw that Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, and other famous figures/groups will attend the protest in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the flagship location for this national event. I thought, "Oh, cool, I'd really like to go to the protest if I didn't need to work that day."

Then I saw today that Bernie Sanders will attend this rally too. I thought, "Ok, I really want to go to the protest now." I checked with my coworkers, and they'll all be working, so I filed the request with my manager for time off. Normally, I'd have no doubt the request would be granted, but I've already filled his inbox with requests for other vacation uses during the next month (daily patrols, plus some weekdays to go do gardening). I'm hopeful (just not 100% certain) that I'll get approval to avoid work that Saturday.

Edit: I also see that some people are really increasing the impact of the message. For some, it's not just "No Kings" but "No Kings / No Cowards". Here's an archived image of that banner, with its red and blue backgrounds indicating which political party's leadership should receive each directive. That Minnesota message is different from the national organization's, and it definitely has a different punch to it.

soemand

Yesterday I found myself deep in a nostalgic little project: making album‑side cassettes. I pulled out a few classics—Ziggy Stardust and Amy Winehouse, for example—and set about fitting each onto a C‑60, with its strict 30‑minutes‑per‑side limit. That constraint forces choices. Ziggy Stardust runs about 38 minutes, so three tracks had to go. Surprisingly, trimming Star, It Ain’t Easy, and Hang On to Yourself made the album feel even tighter, the narrative more focused.

It reminded me of an old mixtape technique from back when you either hunted down obscure, perfectly timed Japanese blanks or learned to edit with intention. I’d done something similar with Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, whose cassette and LP versions never quite matched. By dropping a song or two, the album finally slipped neatly onto a 45‑minute C‑90 side—much like the official cassette and album did by shortening “Walk of Life” in contrast to the CD version.

There’s something oddly satisfying about reshaping albums within physical limits. The format imposes boundaries, and the music reveals what truly belongs. It’s a reminder that formats used to shape the music as much as the artists did, and revisiting that constraint can reveal surprising new versions of albums we thought we knew.

Current Music: Amy Winehouse; Back to Black.

ysabetwordsmith

My seeds arrived from Select Seeds.

Painted Tongue 'Select Superbissima Mix' (seeds)

Yarrow 'Flowerburst Red Shades' (seeds)

Coreopsis 'Corusco Cream-Red' (seeds)

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

My Prairie Moon seed order arrived today. :D

Early Figwort (seed)

Late Figwort (seed)

Common Ironweed (seed)

Purple Love Grass (seed)

Lead Plant (seed)

Current Mood: busy

leecetheartist

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

ysabetwordsmith

This crocodile ran like a greyhound across prehistoric Britain 200 million years ago

A newly discovered Triassic reptile from the UK looked more like a racing greyhound than a crocodile, built for speed on land. With long legs and a lightweight body, it hunted small animals in a dry, upland environment millions of years ago. Scientists identified it as a new species after spotting key differences in its fossils. It’s also a tribute to an inspiring teacher who helped spark a future scientist’s curiosity.

Peculiar Obligations has several such species called galloping crocodiles, hoofed crocodiles, or hoofers.

Current Mood: busy

susandennis

Volleyball was good. Elbow Coffee is next on the agenda. Then, at some point, hopefully, Amazon will deliver my order to the locker at the Dollar Store and I can pick it up along with toothpaste and the greeting cards that Bonny asked me to get. On the way home, I'll drop off the Amazon return.

Ok Elbow Coffee is done. It was ok. Bonny really is a key ingredient and she won't be there for at least one more Saturday. Today Noelle said her computer did not come back after the electrical outage. So after coffee I went in to look. Her computer is 9 years old and took a good 20 minutes to go from off to fully on. She's a Gmail user so I took her my spare Chromebook and showed her how to use it and told her is was a way better bet for what her uses, but not to decide anything until she'd used it for a while. She has an appointment with IT on Tuesday so I didn't even bother hooking up her printer. Let them do it. She has both computers up and operational now.

My pants are too long. I wear the same pants every day. They are actually yoga pants. They are nice looking and plain with perfect pockets. They launder beautifully and stretch 4 ways but pop right back to the original size. They are comfortable and I have about a dozen pair. They have always been a smidge too long. Not long enough to require hemming but longer than I would like. Now they are unattractively (and probably dangerously) too long. I don't need a smaller size - and actually, the smaller sizes have the same inseam length. I just need to take up the hem in all the pants. All of them. That's the project today.

Also I am near the end of Death at the White Hart by Chris Chibnall. I can probably stretch it out two days but I probably won't. I've enjoyed the heck out of it. His only other book is Broadchurch. I did not like the TV series but maybe I'll like the book.

I'm beyond dismayed to hear from multiple people that Project Hair Mary - the movie - is great. I could not imagine how they could make it credible, much less great. I'm still not sure I want to see it. But now I probably will. I did love that story so very much.

My Amazon is out for delivery so should probably land pretty soon. I should get a snack for lunch before I head out.

ysabetwordsmith

Today is sunny and hot.

I fed the birds. I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 3/21/26 -- I put topsoil in the four large pots that sit on the ground along the north side of the picnic table.

I also put the indoor flats of tree sprouts and squash sprouts outside to get some sun and air.

It is so hot outside as to limit my activity. In mid-March. This annoys me.

EDIT 3/21/26 -- I put topsoil in the four large pots that sit on the ground along the south side of the picnic table. There is just a little left now.

It's 81°F now. :/

EDIT 3/21/26 -- I spread the last of the topsoil in other pots around the new picnic table.

It's 82°F now. Fuck climate change.

EDIT 3/21/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen two mourning doves in the forest garden.

EDIT 3/21/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Actor Nicholas Brendon has passed away. He is most famous for playing Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but also appeared on Criminal Minds and Private Practice.

Carry on the Work

5 Ways How To Steal The Show As The Comedic Relief In A Drama

Acting -- how to articles from wikiHow

Acting in Horror Films: Why You Need It And How to Pull It Off

Current Mood: busy

bill_schubert

The Lady Banks Roses came back this year and are in bloom:

and this crepe myrtle was way overgrown and touching the house so I cut it way back:

It will be interesting to see how it comes out. It was a lot of work to do it but my guess is it will be in great shape in a month or so and will be under control for a couple of years anyway. Now I know what it takes.

soemand

Quiet mornings are made for small rituals, and today’s was all about building a family‑friendly mixtape—my own “best of” Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel set—now slowly etching itself onto analog tape. There’s something grounding about hearing those warm, imperfect layers settle in, a reminder that music used to live in the physical world before it lived in the cloud.

While working, I kept thinking about a line from a recent article calling the 1990s “the last analog decade.” I’m not sure I fully agree. I was online by ’93, clicking through primitive web pages, and I already had a CD player—digital had definitely arrived. It just wasn’t evenly distributed yet. The ’90s feel more like a hinge: one foot in the tactile past, the other stepping into a future we didn’t quite understand.

Still, as this tape spins, I can’t help appreciating the analog slowness. Maybe the decade wasn’t the last analog one—but it was the last time analog felt like the default rather than the exception.

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Curmudge

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March 2026

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Good pants move

Judee Sill’s Heart Food

Poem: "The Bridge of Mist"

Poetry Fishbowl Update

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Birdfeeding

Spring morning

Sunday papers

the upcoming No Kings rally on Saturday

💿

Select Seeds Order

Prairie Moon Order

Looking up.

Fossils

It's time to hem the pants

Birdfeeding

Moment of Silence: Nicholas Brendon

Pix of spring

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March 2026

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