It's up to you New York, New York

Jan. 14th, 2026 09:59 am
hrj: (Default)
[personal profile] hrj
This is the sort of trip I never felt able to schedule before retirement: put together several purposes and just take a couple weeks to see people and do things.

I flew out on a red-eye because I always have this dilemma when flying east that I can either get up at an ungodly hour of the morning (which means either leaving my car at long-term parking, or getting an airport hotel room the night before), or I can arrive later in the evening than I want to be dealing with unfamiliar transit systems, or I can take a red-eye and have the logistics at both ends done at a reasonable hour of the day...at the expense of losing most of a night's sleep. I did sleep for several hours, but then spent most of yesterday vegging around L's appartment. (Which worked out because she had several online things to do.)

Today is L's big-number birthday celebration (one of the aforesaid "several purposes"). Then I have five days in NYC in which I have two items scheduled, which gives me a chance for more spontaneity than I usually have on trips. After that, it's up to Maine for the family part of the trip.

I was able to get all my blog/podcast stuff set up for the rest of the month--only need to switch things to "live" on the web--so any "work" I do on this trip can be on less urgent (i.e., actually writing on book projects). I think I've been managing better at avoiding having short-term deadlines rule my creative life, but somehow the non-fiction projects have called to me more strongly than the fiction. I suspect that's because the non-fiction is more in the revisions phased than the "creating text out of nothing" phase.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A teen subject to intermittent time-loops sets out to prevent the murder of his unlikable grandfather. This will be much harder than he expects.

The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa

Wednesday Reading Meme

Jan. 14th, 2026 08:37 am
osprey_archer: (books)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Elizabeth Enright’s Then There Were Five. That’s right, the Melendys are back! This time, they befriend a local boy with no friends or relations except his horrible uncle, and the Melendy children take him home and ask “Can we keep him???” They gather scrap metal for the war effort, plan a festival (children in books always throw the most satisfying festivals), and put up a truly astonishing amount of tomatoes.

What I’m Reading Now

Onward and upward in Solzhenitsyn’s In the First Circle! The blurb on the front of this novel praises it as “suspenseful,” which is fascinating because that’s probably the last adjective I’d use to describe it. Absorbing, yes. Full of meticulous portraits of a dizzying array of people, yes. We meet a deeply religious prisoner, a soft-hearted prison guard, Stalin, a prisoner who still believes fanatically in Communism, a prisoner’s wife whose devotion to her husband is cracking under the strain of separation, her friend in their grad student dorm who is trying to wriggle free of being recruited as an informer…

But suspenseful? I wouldn’t call it suspenseful. We’re halfway through the book and we’ve just now meandered back to Volodin, the guy who telephoned the American embassy on Christmas Eve to warn them that the Soviets are planning to steal their atomic bomb secrets. We are not urgently searching for Volodin (well, maybe the fanatically Communist prisoner Rubin is urgently searching for Volodin), we are gently bobbing around in a pool and occasionally bobbing a bit extra hard when we come across one of the ripples caused when Volodin tossed his pebble.

What I Plan to Read Next

National Velvet!
badly_knitted: (Eyebrow Raise)
[personal profile] badly_knitted posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks

Title: Return Of The Living Socks
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: [personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Sock.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 842
Summary: Out on a Rift retrieval in Bute Park, Ianto encounters an alien creature he had hoped never to see again.
Spoilers: Nada.
Warnings: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 503: Sock.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood or any of the characters.






Return Of The Living Socks... )
linaewen: Girl Writing (Girl Writing)
[personal profile] linaewen posting in [community profile] writethisfanfic
Hello on Wednesday!  How are things going in the world of fic?

Did you write?

   - Yes!
   - No!
   - Not yet!

If yes, what kind of writerly activity did you engage in?  How do you feel about it?
If no, what were the obstacles/situations that affected your writerly pursuits?  What will you do differently tomorrow to get more writing done?
If not yet, because the day hasn't gotten going yet, what kind of writing activity are you planning (or hoping) to accomplish?

Pass It On 6

Jan. 14th, 2026 07:11 pm
spikedluv: (winter: mittens by raynedanser)
[personal profile] spikedluv
I had two ultrasounds this morning so I did not leave the house at my usual time. Since I was home a little longer I finished up the chili and got it back into the fridge. Chili always tastes better the next day, which is why I like to get it started the day before. And I figure having it sit in the fridge before I heat it up again will let the flavors do what flavors do. *fingers crossed*

I hit Agway while I was downtown and picked up my aunt’s death certificates. I did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, emptied the dishwasher, went for several walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, scooped kitty litter, and shaved. I made cornbread to go with the chili. I also browned more ground beef and made spaghetti sauce for later in the week.

I typed in ~4,100 more words on my [community profile] smallfandomfest fic to bring it to a total of ~6,600 words! I even got the fic posted! \o/ I finished this Jack Reacher book and watched a couple eps of Secrets of the Zoo.

My healthy eating fail was planning a ‘cheat’ and having it not be as good as I thought it was going to be. :( Very disappointing that I had something not healthy and I couldn’t even really enjoy it.

Temps started out at 33.1(F) and reached 45.0. It was not supposed to get this warm, so it was a nice surprise. And there might’ve been a little bit of sun, too.


Mom Update:

Mom sounded good when I talked to her. My aunt and uncle had visited in the morning, and Sister A was there when I called. Mom says she did not make herself another root beer float today. *g*

Visiting an art museum in Atami

Jan. 14th, 2026 07:08 pm
katriona_s: (travel)
[personal profile] katriona_s
Today it's fine. I took a day off and went to Atami, a small town on hillside on Izu peninsula, to visit some art museum. They hold the exhibition of beautiful woodblock print. I wanted to see those woodblock prints, and also, that museum is on the hill and has the marvelous view of the ocean when sun shines. I visited there with mother, enjoyed the exhibition and the view.



The morning view from the art museum.







The museum building and the view from its front stairs.



The sign of the exhibition.

It's about 1 and a half hour train trip to Atami from Yokohama, so this was a good one-day trip. And going out with my mother was also good.
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2026/008: The Brightness Between Us — Eliot Schrefer
I will live in these current moments as fully as possible. Then I will be gone. Ambrose will be gone. ... It arrives. The brightness between us. [p. 387]

Sequel to The Darkness Outside Us, which I read and liked a lot last year: I have manymany books in my TBR, but needed something instantly engaging and positive to counter world news, so bought this and dived in.

Read no further if you haven't read the first book!

Read more... )

(no subject)

Jan. 14th, 2026 09:37 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] ljgeoff!

Knull #1

Jan. 14th, 2026 04:34 am
cyberghostface: (Thanos)
[personal profile] cyberghostface posting in [community profile] scans_daily


“Donny and Ryan did an amazing job because they refused to make him anything less than an epic threat, and so the only way to beat Knull is to get up on his level, so heroes are forced to grasp these big epic moments themselves, and that's great. Plus, it's rare that we get villains who are so completely evil in that very old-school way. From one angle, Knull's very 90s, in a good way - that big, bold energy that comics were running on like rocket fuel at the time - but from another, he's got that 60s villain energy in that there's no dealing with him, no humanizing him. It's time he came back and did his thing again.” — Al Ewing

Scans under the cut… )

Snowflake Challenge #7

Jan. 14th, 2026 08:42 am
kitarella_imagines: Profile photo (Default)
[personal profile] kitarella_imagines
Snowflake Challenge: A close up shot of an owl ornament hanging amidst pine boughs..


Challenge #7

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.


Read more... )
shallowness: Esther holding a parasol and Babbington standing on the beach twisting a little to look at each other (My Lady Disdain on the beach)
[personal profile] shallowness
Hotel Portofino 3.5 - Revelations

Read more... )

Not quite 365 days questions meme

Jan. 13th, 2026 11:45 pm
pattrose: 00 Starfleet Academy 1 (Default)
[personal profile] pattrose
14. Mark Antony was born today in Rome in 83BCE. Have you ever seen “Cleopatra” starring Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra and Richard Burton as Mark Antony?


For school we had to go see the movie and then make a bigger report on it. I got an A on the report. But for the life of me I can’t remember anything about the movie. The only thing I remember was how beautiful both actors were. Her eyes were beautiful on the big screen.

Does anyone really remember this movie?

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labingi

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