#myriad mutters

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ⓘ A sewing machine is a device that provides a several-fold increase of the speed at which you can make mistakes

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every time I see one individual being credited for a massive shift in scientific consensus I heave a mighty sigh

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okay so I knowwww this book is from the 60s & people have cognitive biases they don't always recognize regardless of how hard they're trying to overcome them and I knowwww making shallow criticisms of Rachel Carson places me among rather distasteful company but like.

ma'am. what are you implying the environment is made of.

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"posts that have 10k notes to me" is an incantation that summons imps of perversity

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hate when I am full of Thoughts and Ideas but it is Very Bedtime because I have to get up So Early tomorrow

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guy who has only ever lived in a monarchy observing eusocial insects: hm. getting big monarchy vibes from this.

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What I'm Reading Wednesday

Recently finished:

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin; Brightness Falls From the Air by James Tiptree, Jr.: I'm grouping these together because they're both classic sci-fi that I read because of Jo Walton's novel Among Others. In some ways they have a similar feel to them, and I'm not sure how much that's because they're following (or breaking in similar ways) more general literary conventions of their era—I grant they were published 14 years apart so I'm using "era" in a broad sense here—vs. SFF specific ones, vs. Tiptree being influenced by Le Guin. Both of them give me a sense of being acted on a stage, having a larger than life quality even in moments where the people and events are fairly ordinary; this is by no means an insult, because I think they do it well. It reminds me of ST:TOS in that way. If one is interested in classic sci-fi one could do far worse than to read either of these books.

Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell: this is a great book to read if you enjoy characters who are kind of terrible but very funny (and stick with their friends when it counts.) Julia Larwood is kind of the character of all time: consummate failgirl who somehow passed the English Bar, personification of Murphy's Law, only interested in sexcapades and cocktails, nothing is ever her fault, she actually has the confidence of the proverbial mediocre white man.

Currently reading:

Knitting Comfortably: The Ergonomics of Handknitting by Carson Demers: not a ton to say about this one yet but I think it will be useful!

Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science, by Jessica Hernandez, Ph.D.: I'm not very far into this one yet but it is right up my alley and I'm looking forward to learning more from it & sharing what I learn in various ways.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk: This book is not just (as I had gathered from the times I'd seen it recommended) a description of trauma its effect on the human system, but also a retrospective on the recent history of the psychiatric field's understanding of trauma and how it might be treated. Fascinating, though having seen the dead fish study I do feel compelled to take the fMRI details with a grain of salt.

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My favorite pants abruptly got a giant hole right under one of the rear pockets recently (my wife: "oh no! Not the hot dyke pants!") and I decided to do a sashiko-inspired mend on them. ("-inspired" because I am Not using traditional materials, just the technique.)

I had some trouble figuring out how to transfer the design in a way that didn't result in things going out of alignment; eventually used one of my blocking boards from knitting and pinned the design + the transfer paper + the pants down so that everything would stay in one place and aggressively tracing over the pattern with a ballpoint pen.

…and then it immediately wore off almost completely so I'm more or less freehanding it at this point. Angst is occurring.