Marjorie Rose

I am in earnest; and I will try.

[marjorierose]

tagged by @carolinawrenn; thank you!

last song: I don't seem to have listened to any music today but I have spent quite a bit of time tapping out the claves rhythm that I need to learn for "Pay Me My Money Down." (We don't actually have any claves; I'm using a repurposed set of bones/spoons.) So otherwise it's the soundtrack of the movie I just saw and the curtain call music from Come From Away which I saw last night. I got my hair cut yesterday and the playlist at the salon was all over the place and there was a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" with different lyrics I'd never heard before. Since I started typing this answer I called up the original "Crazy" video so that is now my last song.

currently watching: Game Changer? Lately I've mostly abandoned TV shows in favor of movies. Documentaries about women writers apparently, since I watched The Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin on Friday and Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World this evening. Really good turnout at the movie theater for a documentary about a poet. I have Tove checked out from the library, and they're letting me keep it until New Year's Eve 2027 because the branch is under renovation, but I think I'll watch that one soon to make up the trifecta.

current obsession: I bought these coconut popsicles a week or two ago and found them pretty inconvenient--turns out they were actually made with coconut milk, and they started melting noticeably faster at room temp than other popsicles do--but now I'm all out and I can't stop thinking about them.

currently reading: I just finished listening to Word by Word: the Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper and read Tom Stoppard's Leopoldstadt, his final play; I have five chapters left in Middlemarch. My Libby hold on Empire of Ivory just came in so I think I'm going back to the Temeraire reread/listen that I abruptly halted when Metro Surge started in January. At some point it will stop being rereading, but I don't know where in the series that point occurs.

currently working on: an attempt to find an ending for a seven-year-old fiction project; a handful of seasonally specific work tasks; nonprofit board commitments; vague plans of reorganizing my home office with a standing desk; and lackadaisically, a kerchief I started knitting in May.

last google search: whaddaya know, it's "gnarls barkley crazy."

[enlitment]

spill for me, Muse, the wine-dark tea on a problematic man

[hellenhighwater]

I forgot to eat dinner so I'm having 11 pm corn on the cob. This counts as a meal

... It's possible that I really need to do some grocery shopping

[hellenhighwater]

Okay for those of you living in pitiful ignorance, take a raw ear of corn with the husk on and cut all the way around the base (as pictured: above the point where the husk meets the cob, so that the entire husk is severed but still wrapped around the corn. Do not cut through the cob.) Then, with the husk still on, microwave it for 5-7 minutes. It'll basically steam it inside the husk. Remove from microwave --it will be hot, so use a mitt or a towel--and firmly pull the top of the husk/silk, which should come off easily in one piece, unsheathing a flawless corn on the cob. If it doesn't, you probably need to cut a little higher around the base, so all the leaves are severed. No picking off silk!

[hellenhighwater]

For the nonbelievers (and for me, a second corn)

[hellenhighwater]

This website works so well

[marjorierose]

I did this tonight and it worked perfectly. Good thing I am an adult and therefore allowed.

[kuttithevangu]

I really cannot overstate how xenophobic a world Valdemar is, even characters who are supposed to be Good will say stuff like oh all the crime in the lower city is because of the immigrants. It’s egregious. Because of the premise of the horses making this kingdom extra good, which is in constant conflict with the traumatic backgrounds of the protagonists, I keep waiting for the reveal that it’s all a lie and the horses are just mind-controlling everyone to be racist so they can maintain horse control. Remember in the Graceling books there was that kingdom where everyone thought they were happy and prosperous but actually their king was brainwashing all of them to forget every time they disappeared someone? I feel like that’s what’s happening in Valdemar but the psychic horses got to Mercedes too

[marjorierose]

I don't remember which book it's in but there's a passage that's like, if the Queen knew about these criminal neighborhoods she'd scour out all the crime and clean it all up, and then she'd leave and it would go back to being like it was before, so it's better to never let her find out about that whole aspect of the city. Really...specific...idea of a just ruler and a desirable kingdom.

[redstonedust]

my worst habit as a writer is that i lovveeeeee to expand on families as character and worldbuilding but then i have to sit here like. is there any possible way for me to introduce "has an aunt whos a postal worker and single mother trying to bounce back from a recent divorce' into the narrative. can i naturally drop my aunt lore. its important to me.

[heavensfargardens]

@alltheworldsinmyhead

[marjorierose]

I keep seeing the city vs country poll go by without voting in it, because I chose and continue to choose the city, and it's hard to imagine giving up the community and everything else it gives me, but every summer I wish a little harder that I could sit outside without the noise of hundreds of people's air conditioners and delivery and utility vehicles idling on the street and the constant smell of somebody's weed smoke somewhere.

[lastoneout]

Here's my real tip for anyone moving out on their own for the first time; when you buy a set of measuring cups or spoons buy ones that have the measurement engraved into the cup/spoon and do NOT buy ones where it's just printed on. Because that ink/paint/ect. can rub off and then you'll have a bunch of useless little spoons and cups you have to get rid of bcs they no longer say what size they are. Don't ask me how I know, just trust me that you wanna buy engraved ones.

[redscharlach]

A few favourites from the small-but-cool show Barbara Hepworth In Colour, currently at the Courtauld Gallery, London (until 6 September 2026). Most of the sculptures are in glass boxes, so not easy to photograph well, but they're nonetheless very pleasing.

[jennamoran]

slowly, as if waking from a fever dream, I realize that Stuart Little and Stuart Semple are not the same

[vintageandroid]

i made a post like this before but I can't find it now. so. I'll just redo it.

What's the first "big news story" you remember from when you were a kid?

It's something I love to ask mixed-aged groups sometimes because I think it's really interesting to see the responses. I've gotten answers from the Olympics of [whatever year] to Watergate to more recent stuff from my niblings.

My first news thing I remember is the OJ Simpson trial. I vaguely remember watching the news with my grandparents before that, but that's the first story I remember, in part because my second grade teacher had us go play so she could watch the verdict 😂

[absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog]

I remember walking down the street and seeing a sign protesting George W. Bush’s war on Iraq, so I think that.

[marjorierose]

I've been dyeing my hair purple for about four years. It's not brilliant purple throughout--my original hair color is brown, but I started graying in my twenties and would now have quite a decisive Cruella de Ville streak except I've filled it in with plum, which is sort of a stripe when my hair is down and is the predominant color when it's pulled back, like it usually is in the summertime. I like it--I like how it looks, I like how the dye softens the texture of my wiry white hairs, I like having something a little unusual and obviously purposeful as a part of my self-presentation, and I get compliments on it; but on a day-to-day basis I don't think about it very much. A couple times recently I've had conversations with people about somebody else where I said, I'm not sure if they know who I am, and the person I was talking to said, well, they should, you're the one with the purple hair. I got off a bus a while back to run an errand and then went to wait for the same bus to take me on home, and somebody approached me because he recognized we'd been on the same bus together and this was reason enough to ask me for advice on where he should apply for bartending jobs. When we got on the next bus everybody including the driver eventually got in on brainstorming places for that guy to work, but that's still the kind of interaction that I would, in the abstract, expect to observe and not be a part of. I still think of myself as fundamentally inconspicuous. It's startling when I'm not, even though I did that myself.

[sixth-light]

Do you know what an iced chocolate is?

Yes and I’ve had one

Yes but I’ve never had one

No but I have a confident guess (in tags please)

No and I have no idea

Clicky button

Remaining time: 2 days 7 hours

A friend was describing introducing cafe workers in the UK to the concept of the iced chocolate and then I found out Wikipedia doesn’t know what they are and then I thought: is this another lemon lime and bitters situation? So…Tumblr poll time!

[minipliny]

Moby Dick character most likely to succeed at Middlemarch

Captain Ahab

Starbuck

Stubb

Flask

Queequeg

Tashtego

Daggoo

Ishmael

Father Mapple

Aunt Charity

Peleg and Bildad

Other (write in to support)

Voting ended onJul 18

[marjorierose]

Wait what does it mean to succeed at Middlemarch

[minipliny]

Wow Marjorie I guess you missed the part of the novel where George Eliot explains the simple, straightforward way to be a good person that works in every possible situation and also consistently meets with social approbation, financial success, political sympathy and romantic fulfilment, as well as 100% lacking any regrets or inner conflict about your decisions, which have disappointed no one! There's definitely an appendix in my edition #cottagemaxxing

[marjorierose]

In that case!

The Nantucketers seem to have the most experience living in a small community and everything that entails, at least if they actually live there. Stationary Nantucketers are Father Mapple, Aunt Charity, Peleg and Bildad, all of whom seem to be financially and socially stable. Peleg and Bildad are living in a state of religious/ethical dissonance that would make them right at home in an Eliot setting up to the point someone called their bluff, at which point they might set off a chain of dominos that ends in someone getting killed, or they might laugh and walk away. Hard to tell. Father Mapple seems too good at his job to have many friends. Aunt Charity is industrious, seems sociable, and I would be surprised if she isn't a pillar of the community. Charity wins that bracket.

The whalers are all burdened with the necessity of leaving their hometowns and sailing all over the world most of the time, shoreless, indefinite as God! But some parallels can be drawn to Middlemarchers. Amongst the officers: Ahab is the closest thing we have to a Casaubon figure, engaged in a pursuit of something eternally elusive and fucking up a pious younger person's life in the process. Can you imagine how much they would hate each other? Casaubon does not win at Middlemarch and neither does Ahab. Stubb and Flask get along fine most of the time; people would talk about Stubb in the yards and public houses of Middlemarch, but he wouldn't care too much. Flask would get a little bit trod upon until he could get a better job. The heavy favorite here is Starbuck. He strikes me as unlikely to start conducting social campaigns à la Will Ladislaw (which I do take to be a success mode of Middlemarching) mostly because he's too aware of the necessity of making a living; but he's principled, aware of social status and financial responsibility, and married to a presumably appropriate person with a child. He would make a solid employee for a Caleb Garth in ordinary times and would have exquisite religious torments to juxtapose with Dorothea's when things got bad. I hate to play favorites, but amongst the officers' mess Starbuck is clearly ahead.

That leaves the harpooners and also Ishmael, who historically makes no objection when bundled with harpooners by happenstance. [edit: I said that wrong. He makes strenuous and prolonged objection, he just gets over it.] Middlemarch is, as I understand it, landlocked, which poses some difficulty to all of these four but is an absolute kiss of death for Ishmael. He simply would not. That boy would walk into town and then prefer-not-to his way straight out the other side of it. Meanwhile, it seems to me the closest to a positive relationship anyone in Middlemarch would attempt to form with any of the harpooners, none of whom are white, would be as objects of charity. I guess Tashtego would have the easiest time of it as a native English speaker from the US, although we don't really know that much about him.

Charity vs. Starbuck vs. Tashtego is not a match-up I have ever had occasion to consider before. I'm going to get some dinner and consider what I've done before casting my precious only vote in this poll.

[minipliny]

There are so many excellent aspects to this reblog but I am stuck like a record-scratch on: "Ahab is the closest thing we have to a Casaubon figure, engaged in a pursuit of something eternally elusive and fucking up a pious younger person's life in the process."

I. I had not taken this particular angle and now I am stuck on the fact that Starbuck gets (SOME OF) things Dorothea wanted without himself having wanted any of them i.e. being Entirely 100% Trusted and Essential To The Important Work, Indeed the Best Person For It Without Which It Could Not Be Done, Looking Deeply Into The Other Person's Soul And Having Them Look Deeply Into Yours, and Outbursts Of Intense Emotion. Much good as those are in a situation where you would like: none of these

Meanwhile Dorothea gets Casaubon Does Not Fuck Up His Academic Work In Such A Way That He Takes Down 30-40 People With Him In Some Kind Of Hideous German Translation Accident, They Died While Waiting For The Main Verb. "at least you didn't drown Dorothea", "actually sometimes a profound spiritual connection is worse"

I will think about this periodically for the rest of my life. Wow. At least Ahab would 100% for sure write that book.

[galileosballs]

Also, please do not listen to how people talk about cover letters on this site. Cover letters are important, and in many industries you can be damn sure they'll be read. And no, they're not 'fanfic about working in your office', or just re-stating the resume contents in a fancier guise. If you treat them like that, then of course they're not doing much for you. That makes you sound like a syncophantic windbag, and it's not doing anything else to help.

I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.

The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.

This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.

And the other mistake? Everyone writes cover letters that are too long. One page is fine. Two is the absolute maximum, and that's if you have a lot of specific things to say. It's a waste of your time and theirs to pad it out with fluff. Of my two most recent successful cover letters (i.e. jobs for which I was interviewed) one was 390 words and the other was 550. That's the length of this post. How long did it take me to write this post? About 15 minutes to write, 5 to proof and edit. That's how long you should be spending on a cover letter, maximum.

[katenepveu]

For much more information, examples, advice:

cover letters Archives

Your cover letter is where you make a case for why you’d excel at the job, aside from what’s in your resume. A good cover letter can be the

[elbiotipo]

"warm, shallow seas" is one of the most beautiful phrases in paleontology and it's everywhere... these mollusks lived in warm, shallow seas... scientists think that photosynthetic life evolved in warm, shallow seas... in that era the Earth was covered by warm, shallow seas...

I wish I was resting by an antediluvian warm, shallow sea

[aenslem]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 2005 || dir: Garth Jennings

[porcelain-dollbones]

it really is kind of interesting how attached people are to the idea of the improvised line and the genuine reaction in film. nearly every single famous moment or line has some sort of claim floating around that it wasn't in the script and was either made up on the spot by an actor or was sprung as a surprise on the actors to get their 'real' reaction. you know, sometimes people do come up with good lines in advance and write them down, and sometimes people can pretend to be have a convincing emotional response on screen

[marjorierose]

"Actors have little baby brains and they have to be emotionally manipulated into giving a good performance."