Reading

Entry tags:

To-read pile, 2026, March

Books on pre-order:

Platform Decay (Murderbot 8) by Martha Wells (5 May)
Radiant Star (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie (12 May)
Unrivaled (Game Changers 7) by Rachel Reid (1 Jun 2027)

Books acquired in March:

and read:
1. My Kind of Guy by Sarina Bowen
2. Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian
and previously read:
1. The Martian by Andy Weir
2. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Books acquired previously and read in March:

Apt to be Suspicious (Liminal Mysteries 2) by Celia Lake [Dec 2025]

Borrowed books read in March:

The Chalice of the Gods (Percy Jackson and the Olympians 6) by Rick Riordan [3]
The Sun and the Star (Nico Di Angelo Adventures 1) by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro
Wrath of the Triple Goddess (Percy Jackson and the Olympians 7) by Rick Riordan [3]
The Court of the Dead (Nico Di Angelo Adventures 2) by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro [2][DNF]

Rereads in March:

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

I gave up on The Court of the Dead because I wasn't getting on with the library audiobook; at some future point I hope the library will get an ebook or paperback copy (but the paperback doesn't come out until June), and I will try again. But aside from that, I've now read all the Percy Jackson-verse books published to date, having started this ride back in November. (And now I plan a slow re-read with The Newest Olympian podcast.) I did manage a few books outside Percy Jackson this month, and enjoyed them all, but I'm feeling completionist about working through Rick Riordan's other books now.

Oh and picking up Fourth Wing for cheap has reminded me that I never finished the third book, Onyx Storm, before my library loan expired, and it seems there are now no e-audio copies available through the library, and the paperback literally only just came out. I will maybe wait a little and see if they get some paperbacks in (they have a healthy stack of hardback copies but my hands won't let me read those easily).

[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book

(no subject)

So like when the Artemis Astronauts get to the Moon do you think they will finally get pictures of the MoonBunny.

Or like is she just very good at hiding from humans with annoying rockets?

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1SE for March 2026

Watch on YouTube

Very much feeling as though I'm limping toward the finish line here. The University shuts down at CoB tomorrow for the Easter holiday. I'm running on fumes and caffeine, trying to clear my desk and inbox of things I really shouldn't leave until after it re-opens.

This month features the return of the canal boats*, two trips to London, and the inaugural ice creams from the Ninja Creami (thank you,

semianonymous!). Making your own soft serve ice cream from scratch truly is a luxury.

* We missed them last year. The entire lock flight had to be shut for months so the Canal and Rivers Trust could carry out extensive repairs to a lock with collapsed walls.

Entry tags:

TDOV

Visible

To learn young
That
To be seen
Is
To be hurt

To discover
That
To be seen
Wrong
Bleeds tears

To wish
That
To be seen
Were
Even real

To know
That
To be seen
Is
Never simple

To wonder
If
Being seen
Will
Work out
This time.

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Events of note: March

(some of these have had their own posts; some probably should; do ask me to expand in comments if you want more details!)

( four busy weeks )

April has two uni Nationals weekends in Sheffield (one each with Womens Blues and Huskies), a hockey camp in Hull, three other hockey games, hopefully some more theatre trips, and a movie date next week with Tony.

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The Friday Five on a Saturday

What is a common ear worm that you get?

My children rickroll me pretty regularly, so That Song gets stuck in my head.
How long do they last?

Not very long. My brain is usually too preoccupied with other sources of worry and stress to spend long on an earworm.
What do you do to get rid of them?

I don't know if this will sound contradictory, but on the rare occasions when an earworm sticks, I find that playing the actual song gets rid of it.
What is the worst ear worm you've ever had?

There's this Robyn song that I dislike intensely, and it popped in and out of my head for a week. I don't like the song so was very reluctant to employ my usual remedy.
Do you get some guilty pleasure in passing the ear worm along?

Not unless it's reciprocally rickrolling my children.

Current Mood: isolated

Lachesis mini-adventure

We got a new taking-around Bunny last week on Bunny Festival (the shop person asked if they should put her in a bag and like laughed a bit when we said no becos we were going to take her for coffee and get to know her).

After a few days she told us her name is Lachesis (after one of the Fates - she who measures) and we brung her with us to stay with Dad (even though most of our carrying capacity was taken up with (like jars of) marmalade.

This morning in like a sunny patch of the sunshine and showers we went for a walk in the woodland round the edge of the “Retirement Village”. It was quite pretty with some celandine still, lots of primroses already and a few bluebells (and like at least one white bell) beginning. And the birds singing lots. But after we got back we realised Lachesis wasn’t in our pocket any more!

We (with Dad) had to go back out and retrace our steps - and like unfortunately hit a shower patch to look for her. We got round like about 80% of the walk before we found her and she was like extremely rained on and a bit muddy. So she had to go straight in the washing machine and then have an airing cupboard nap…

Today we also darned a sock and listened to Dad watching the new archbishop’s enthronement (he kept pointing to people on screen and saying who they were but it always seemed to be like right when we couldn’t look up from sewing!) but that was on his computer because the telly aerial for the whole “Retirement Village” got damaged in the storm last night (and even though he’s got like a “smart” tv it gets so grumpy about not having signal that it won’t let you switch to iPlayer - humpf!)

Bit worried she got overwhelmed with being so new about having to do ParentWrangling straight away. But maybe she just liked being in the woodland? We don’t have a lot of not-street-or-park trees at home… there are lots of things to measure out there

Entry tags:

I got nothing but poetry

I think this is a sign that my ADHD meds are also antidepressants?

Earth

none of us are built
to be this brave

the epics told the truth:
the inhuman weight
of necessary courage
makes monsters
of its warriors
(of its victims)

because

only monsters
can survive
valor

and not
lie beneath

yet/still vs not-yet/not-still vs still-not/yet-not.

Still (ha!) being confused by that thing where yet and still are roughly synonyms (massive difference in register notwithstanding) and "not yet" and "not still" are verging on antonyms. ("not begun" vs "already ended").

I always have a lot of trouble thinking through yet/still esp when trying to translate stuff.

I *think* it *might* be

still X = yet X → "X began at some point in the past and continued to happen until [now]" (where [now] is either deictic or anaphoric "on wednesday it was still raining")

and then:

not still X → "!(still X)" [*] "she is not still learning the guitar"
not yet X → "still !(X)"  [**] "she is not yet learning the guitar"
still not X → "still !(X)" "she is still not learning the guitar"
yet not X → "still !(X)" [***]  "she is yet not learning the guitar"

but my head hurts a bit now. Obv I'm not including non-temporal uses such as "yet" meaning "nevertheless".

I think this is probably same thing as that weird English quirk where "must not" ≈ "may not" but "must" != "may"; the "not" scopes oddly with "must (not X)" vs "(may not) X". But there it's kinda easy to bracket them as above. The "verb not" → !(verb) thing is archaic, but I see how it got there.

But with not-yet the "not" feels like it scopes to an argument it's not adjacent to. I know, idioms gonna idiom non-compositionally, but still. (ha again)

[*] with implication that X definitely has happened in the past but has now stopped, even if a very literal pedant could pretend that it could include the situation where X has never happened (and hence is continuing not to happen.)

[**] nuance difference ofc; "not yet X" implies very heavily that X is expected to happen at some point; "still not X" doesn't imply it nearly as strongly. But the directionality in time is the same — hasn't happened in the past, might happen in the future.

[***] and sounds dated verging on archaic. "yet not" I think is basically reserved for non-temporal uses ("it was damp yet not raining").

Apparently questions for a Friday, on a Sunday

1. What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

LJ: In the late 1990s, various London-based bisexuals used a message board site whose name I can't currently remember. The particular one they created was called 'drunk bisexuals' - the founders were part of the section of the London Bisexual Group that stopped going to the group itself but still met up on Fridays at a nearby gay pub / an 'indie' club night, Popstarz.

The site had a load of problems (messages disappeared permanently after a semi-random time, for example) but it was where the people are - the eternal issue with the success or failure of a social media site.

One day, one of the Simons (there were at least five people called 'Simon' in the group, and they had Spice Girl nicknames) posted that soon no-one would be posting there, because everyone would have moved to LJ. They were right. Before long, a big chunk of the UK bi community was on it.

I bought a permanent account not long afterwards.

A large chunk of the UK bi people left for the evilFB when it arrived, but I still valued what was better about LJ (almost everything, apart from having fewer people I knew posting / reading!)

DW: the author of LJ, Brad Fitzpatrick, sold LJ to blogging company Six Apart in (checks) 2005. That brought problems - they started showing ads to people without paid accounts, for example. They sold it to a Russian company in 2007 (LJ was huge there) and that brought more.

When DW was announced, using revised LJ code, in 2008, I paid for a permanent paid account at the start without hesitation.

For years, I cross-posted DW posts to LJ. I stopped when the Russian LJ owners moved the servers to Russia and you knew that their security services had access to everything.

2. How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

Not many. The one for discussing The Americans TV series was the last serious one.

3. Do you have a favourite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

No. The Americans ended its run years ago. A couple are on my default reading page but very rarely have anything new.

4. How did you pick your user name?

'Ian' was long gone on LJ. When looking through a list of lapsed .com domains around 2000, 'lovingboth.com' was available, so I registered it. It was also available on LJ, so...

With the move to DW, 'Ian' was available (and it's me) but partly to retain continuity with the LJ, this is the real account.

5. If you could change your user name, would you?

Breaking web links is just Wrong, and I think doing that would do that.

Entry tags:

Really, really winning.

PSA

Did you know
Mental health is worse
In the population
We're trying to kill?

It's why
They can't be allowed
To be
Like that.

It's for their own good,
You see.
These laws
Are protection.

Left to their own devices
They make bad choices,
Which lead to
Negative outcomes,
Like living.

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Depression is winning today

Rat

The poem says
Hope is a sewer rat
Adapted
For survival

Despite the plague
And the filth
And the hate

And I
Got the t-shirt
The one with the rats
That says
"You will not
Exterminate
Us"

That they
Resurrected
For rats
Like me

But I am
Sick
Of gnawing
A way
Out

And so tired
Of the stench.

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Varsity!

This time a week ago I was on the ice with fellow Cambridge alumni for "Alumni game 1", kicking off Varsity. Photos (from one of my Warbirds teammates!) that actually make me look good are over at my hockey insta but here's my personal favourite, capturing a moment in motion:

After about an hour on the ice (2 periods running clock, 4 lines), I had a quick shower, and then spent the next ten or so hours mostly on my feet, doing music and announcements for my Huskies teammates, and scoresheet and in-game announcements for Women's Blues and Men's Blues. Final scores were:

Alumni game 1: 1-1
Alumni game 2: not sure, but we won
Huskies: 3-8
Women's Blues: 0-1
Men's Blues: 5-1

The alumni games were a great vibe: we cared, but it wasn't that intense. A whole load of the women I played with in 2022-23 came back, and for me that was really joyful, plus I got to make some new friends. A couple of the older guys in game 1 had played with my old work colleague Brian Omotani back in the day. Although he didn't play, he was there to watch, and he made time to come and find me for a brief catchup later in the day.

The rest of the day though was a different gear. The Huskies game was especially tough to watch, and I felt every goal against my teammates. The Women's Blues game was incredible, the team worked so hard and it was probably the best I've seen them play. And the Men's Blues winning so decisively was delightful, especially as the first goal came from one of the two ex-Huskies (and they both got an assist each later). The whole day was incredibly intense. And then I took my kit home to hang it up, changed, met up with everyone at Mash, danced until the club closed, went to Maccies (and realised just how much my feet hurt) until that closed, and sat on a bench gossiping with two of my favourite people in the club while one of them finished his burger. Eventually we all cycled home. I didn't want the day to end, but I had things to do on Sunday.

That is, very nearly, the end of the season with just the Nationals weekends in Sheffield to go. We've finished the league games, we've had Varsity, we're shifting to "summer ice" open practices, and even had the very last "S&C" gym session on Thursday this week. Some people will graduate and leave soon, and I will miss them so much, but I am so grateful for this university season and the time I've had with these wonderful people.

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The Friday Five

The preceding two weeks of Friday Five questions didn't pique my interest, but this week's are great. Love a bit of meta-blogging. Thank you for the opportunity to navel-gaze.

What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

I started off on LJ in 2001 because everyone was doing it. I created an account and then let it sit for a couple of weeks while I figured out what it was for. I think it was victorine who prodded me into posting regularly and then I just…never stopped.
How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

A few dozen in total. Most of them are dead, the LJ communities in particular. The only one I participate in regularly is DW community awesomeers, because I'm one of the two people who puts up the daily “Just One Thing” posts. I find it easier to write a short comment about my day there than to write up a full post, especially during the work week.
Do you have a favorite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

See above. I also enjoy thefridayfive, and I like reading threeforthememories during its annual spate of activity.
How did you pick your user name?

My current username is a play on my actual name. My original LJ name was “lilith” as that's the pseudonym I first adopted when I started interacting with online communities back in the 90s. Eventually I felt I'd outgrown it, and I've been nanila ever since.
If you could change your user name, would you?

That would genuinely be a big decision after more than 15 years of using this one, in a lot more places than DW and LJ. I'd have to do substantive additional navel-gazing to work out what it would be.