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Mini WriMo on LJ -- minimum 100 words a day for 30 days -- is open for signups from now until November 10th.

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Mini WriMo 2025 Signup Post

Current Mood: writerly
Current Location: near the lake they call Michigan

ride_4ever

Thank you kindly to

james and to

dine for Halloween cards, and to

noxelementalist for the art postcard.

Current Mood: posty
Current Location: near the lake they call Michigan

sage

books
The Dharma of Healing: The Path of Liberation from Stress, Pain, and Trauma by Justin Michelson. 2025. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED if you have a history of anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain, etc. I did hate the introduction, but I loved the rest of it. I've done all but the last couple of the guided meditations, too. A++, will absolutely reread.

Italy in the Central Middle Ages: 1000-1300 by David Abulafia et al. 2004, so it's dated scholarship, but there are some interesting tidbits.

healthcrap
Sooo, last week's whining turned out to be the worst IBS flare I've had in over a decade. I didn't know it could cause insomnia! THEN! Friday I failed to add one of my psych meds to my pill box & only realized it YESTERDAY! :facepalms forever: That only added to the existing nausea and insomnia from last week. Grrrr! ( cut for mention of weight maintenance issues )

yarning
I missed yarn group Sunday due to the IBS/withdrawal nausea. Spent the time crocheting another cat stitch scarf and reviewing Yuletide canon. Monday I did a long photoshoot of the 15 items that I just listed in my shop. (So many cat toys! -- just in time for Kitten Academy Sekrit Santa to go live, woot!) Also, this soft acrylic scarf is for sale (as well as matching one in a burgundy, ivory, and grey wool-blend):

I'm holding back on making more cat stitch scarves until these two sell, unless someone commissions one in other colors, frex. Meanwhile, I have all this yarn that I'm impatient to use, and I just don't know what to make with it. Suggestions welcome! Maybe more winter hats for donation? IDK. I also am on the verge of making an S3 Lestat art doll, except I need some good reference images, esp for the scars. If I do a wire armature, he can even hold a tiny microphone. Hmmmm...

etsy
also, etsy's CEO is stepping down and a different board member, I forget her name atm, is stepping up. May she undo the stupid decisions the soon-to-be-former guy made.

#resist
THIS weekend! #50501: Disappeared in America Weekend of Action — a national mobilization to protect immigrants, expose corporate complicity, and honor the lives lost in detention. Includes protests at Home Depots, Freedom Vigils & invokes el Día de los Muertos in an actually appropriate way.

Hurricane Melissa
Stronger than Katrina! When it hit Jamaica, Melissa had surface level winds gusting up to 252mph, 185mph sustained. I don't yet know where to link to donate that isn't the Red Cross, but dear gods. Wind like that, to say nothing of the surge, isn't survivable. Please consider donating to relief operations once they unfold. (Marco Rubio says US forces are there helping dig out so relief can arrive.)

EDITED TO ADD: WAYS TO DONATE TO JAMAICA RELIEF, from

minoanmiss:
https://projectdynamo.net/project-dynamo-preparing-to-deploy-rescue-team-supplies-to-jamaica-immediately-after-hurricane-melissa/

https://supportjamaica.gov.jm/

That said, I hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween! It's Fall here at last, temperature-wise, and finally time to put a blanket back on the bed. I hope you're all doing well! <333

ride_4ever

petra has posted that if you donate at least $25 in cash or food to a food bank at any point between now and the end of the Trump Administration, and you either share a fandom of theirs and want a drabble or poetry for that fandom, or if you want original poetry, comment to

petra about your donation and they will write for you.

For full details, including where to post your comment-of-donation and your writing request see their Dreamwidth post.

Current Mood: supportive
Current Location: near the lake they call Michigan

grey853

When I last checked in, I told you about the heart cath and stent procedures I had toward the end of September after my heart attack. Well, that wasn't the end of it. I came home on Thursday and by that Sunday, I knew something was desperately wrong. I could hardly breathe and wanted to faint. I called an ambulance. The ER found that my hemoglobin was 8. It should be around 12. By the time they tested again an hour later, it'd dropped to 6. I had an internal bleed. Over the next four days, I received 4 units of blood and 2 iron infusions. I also had an endoscopy and found that I had 4 polyps in my stomach. That's where the bleed had been. The problem was with the blood thinners I'm on, they can't be removed at this time. So, I have to take special care about what I eat and take medicines to coat and protect my stomach.

I was sent home and then on the 22nd of October, I went in to get a Watchman device in my heart which will help prevent blood clots caused by my persistent AFIB/AFlutter. I'm now recovering from that procedure along with a TEE, which is a trans esophageal echocardiogram which made me feel like I'd swallowed a tree trunk. The point of doing this Watchman procedure was so that I could cut back on the blood thinners, down from three to one, which I have.

All in all, I've been saved twice this month by medical intervention and been in the hospital 12 days. Thank good I've got good insurance and praise the miracles of science.

I see the doctors again on the November 11 and December 16. The next step is to get an ablation which, fingers crossed, will stop the AFib/A flutter. But I can't do that until the heart heals from this last procedure, which is about 6 weeks.

All this is to say, I've not been writing. I'm spending my time recovering and trying to get as healthy as possible.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Current Music: "Go Easy on Me" by Adele

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

ride_4ever

obi_ki and her son Alan have been two of my Con*Strict friends. I've just today learned of Alan's death. Too sad for me to write more here but you can read about Alan's life and his family and his friends at Alan's obituary.

Current Mood: sad sad sad
Current Location: near the lake they call Michigan

sage

( books (De Nicola et al, Ben-Ghiat, Michelson, Thomson) )

healthcrap
The eye is gradually getting better but is still semi-borked. ( cut for mention of weight loss & nausea ) Also, I have some pain in the ass neighbors across the street who stay on their front porch day and night, talking nonstop en español, which is just on the edge of what I can't, at speed, distance, and through walls, understand. Though my brain keeps trying. Annnnd it all interfered badly with my sleep Sunday night. (I had to dig up my earplugs and I was literally *sweating* with aggravation.) OTOH, they have sort of respected quiet hours since late Monday. Trouble is, since the weekend, I'm not sleeping til after 4am now, even with it quiet. Even with going to bed at 9 and trying to read myself to sleep like usual. It's awful. I've already got a sleep disorder. I don't need this on top of it. /extended whine

yarning
Finished the calico cat stitch scarf, made a second one, sold it, and ~~started~~ finished a shorter one (~68-72 inches) in black (instead of taupe), cream, and orange. ( more yarning )

#resist
Nothing national scheduled yet. Mobilize has lots of small local things on their calendar, though.

I hope all of y'all are doing well! <333

thisaintbc posting in

ds_noticeboard

We have two works that so far have not received complementary claims for the due South/Canadian Six Degrees Big Bang. I know our extended schedule is running up against holiday exchanges, which makes signing up for this more complicated, but we have some really lovely primary works this year and I'd like everyone to get a complementary work if possible - so please, go take a look and see if there's something there that makes you feel inspired!

The unclaimed creators are Creator 1 and Creator 6 in the complementary claims post; complementary works would be due November 21 (with a mandatory checkpoint on November 1).

alierak posting in

dw_maintenance

DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

scriggle

Today I made baklava.

Haven't tasted it yet.

Buddies!

Fannish 50 Challenge 2025: Post # 36: annual November Mini WriMo now open for signups

Fannish 50 Challenge 2025: Post # 35: Postal Mail from Fen

What I'm Doing Wednesday

Signal Boost: Petra's "Support Food Banks Writing Offer"

Medical Update

Database maintenance

sad news for those who know obi_ki and her son Alan

What I'm Doing Wednesday

Complementary creators needed!

AWS outage

Adventures in baking

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October 2016

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