Reading

This is such a weird framing

"Along the journey she discovers that her and her family were never actually slaves at all but the original royal family and the original slaves usurped the throne and took over due to constantly being oppressed and treated unfairly."

I really want to ask this person if they understand how the concepts of "slavery" and "royalty" work. This girl was definitely a slave because she was enslaved, you can be a slave and also be from a royal family since both these concepts are societal concepts, the word "usurp" suggests that this revolution was invalid and bad, and by the way, if she was born as part of the royal family she's probably lucky she wasn't killed, except that then the book would've been very short and grim, with no happy ending. Well, no happy ending for her, all the happy endings for the people who killed her family and secured their freedom.

(Somebody suggested this may be The Claidi Journals, which is what I was thinking.)

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So I was reading a particular sort of original fic at Ao3

And our protagonist is taking a sojourn with his hot, wealthy boss to Kinky Fantasy Island, and wow, it really *is* a nice place - the hotel room has privacy glass!

The protagonist and the commenters are not as turned on by this as I am, but let me be clear: I'd absolutely fuck a dude if I had a chance to flip the switch on his privacy glass. Hell, I'd listen to him mansplain about privacy glass at me first.

(I'm strongly tempted to say so in a comment, but would that be a weird sort of comment to leave?)

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It's apparently been 50 years

I'm sure their families are still grieving

Watch on YouTube

What is this crap!?

Democrats rebel after 8 senators cut a deal to end the shutdown without ACA funds

Bunch of weak-willed cowards.

Today is my grandmother's birthday

She was inordinately pleased to have been born on the anniversary of the Armistice, not that it kept her country from being invaded again when she was a young woman.

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Brr! Suddenly got cold!

My pipe fix needs retooling. I'm not thrilled, but also not surprised. I need to start putting aside cash every week to get it repaired properly, but for now I'll buy more plumber's putty.

In other news, I have to do all of my laundry - boo! - and my new glasses are working nicely now that I'm used to them. I'm in the stage of owning glasses where I vow I'll be super careful not to let gunk build up between the frames and the lenses. We'll see how long that lasts! Wish me luck!

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Felix Crow by Kay Ryan

Crow school
is basic and
short as a rule—
just the rudiments
of quid pro crow
for most students.
Then each lives out
his unenlightened
span, adding his
bit of blight
to the collected
history of pushing out
the sweeter species;
briefly swaggering the
swagger of his
aggravating ancestors
down my street.
And every time
I like him
when we meet.

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Link

Well, I like them well enough

Except I think that my pupil distance was 56 instead of 55, and also the bridge seems a bit flimsy. That, I don't like, but it may be my amorphous anxiety talking.

In other news, Moonpie has completely scratched and licked up her nipples and now they're bleeding and infected, and apparently the vet prefers to do a blood test at this age, but as the blood test is $400 we declined. (E asked if I thought they judged us for that, lol, sweetie, I always think everybody judges me for everything, but that's not a rational mindset, so no, upon reflection I don't think that. We're hardly the only family to make petcare decisions based on affordability, and even if they do judge us, great, they can pay for this bloodwork themselves.) Also, NYC now mandates a new vaccine for cats and dogs. They can mandate what they like, but they can't make people follow that law. However, after the vet explained that this disease spreads pretty easily and now is spreading to humans, in whom it can cause kidney and/or liver failure, I decided, reluctantly, to make vaxxing the cats a priority. Which means full vet appointments for each one and new rabies shots as well. It's not going to be a quick process, is what I'm saying. (And we still need to replace those water heaters before they break!)

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Well, I've picked out a new set of frames

It was a penny more than the old ones, so there's that. (But I paid for super expedited shipping, so actually it's like $40 more.)

They're green. I'm not so sure about this, but there will be NO MORE TAKE-BACKS. I triple checked that they weren't safety glasses with the things on the side, which would've been great if I was in a field where I needed those but, as it is, was unwearable, and they're the exact same measurement as my old glasses, I checked that as well.

I used the election to read In Other Lands

I liked it, but that was because I liked laughing at how stupidly oblivious the protagonist was to his not-rival's extraordinarily obvious crush on him. And also because I like most things I read.

But then, here I was, 20 minutes from the finish line, our two dudes are about to finally resolve all their deep-seated personal issues that have kept them apart - and my coworkers start a loud conversation right next to me and they will not shut up. I did, eventually, have to ask them to please stop for half an hour so I could finish my book.

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I am so tired

I have a mandatory staff meeting in an hour and I may call out on the grounds that I am so tired.

(I also have a headache, but if I call out on the grounds that omg my head is killing me my manager will tell me to go to the doctor. It's not an illness, it's a generational curse, plus I worked 16 hours on approximate 0 hours of sleep yesterday.)

On the other hand, I want to seem responsible. But... I am really groggy and tired and I have a headache.

Mamdami won

I haven't had a chance to look at any other election results yet, but that's cheering. I do think he's vastly overpromised and will regret it - among other things, free buses requires first wresting the MTA back from Albany, and that's not the job of a single term - but it's not like I liked any of the other candidates.

Especially Cuomo, for many reasons, but most especially because you just can't trust somebody who thinks the best career move after governor is mayor.

Cheney died

Happy Election Day, I guess?

Argh!

I took over Jenn's game of Cult of the Lamb - which may have been a mistake, because her angry followers whom she starved now pop out of chests and try to kill me - and I defeated the big boss and converted him into a follower. And then I resurrected somebody, and literally the second I stepped outside my temple to go to the healing hut to heal the resurrected follower, the resurrectee ate him. So now I have to do a new resurrection!

Didn't look closely enough

picked out a pair of glasses I just cannot stand. Sending them back, getting a better pair. I do have another spare pair if this one gives out entirely.

The word “perforce” does not belong in YA

I don’t care if it is in character, pick another word! (And while it ought to be in character, she hasn’t exactly been dropping the big words every other dialog line. Or if she has, I didn’t notice?)