Friday, September 26th, 2025 07:17 pm
1)

Is there a term for the part of a large non-fiction writing project that comes after the research – when you have a huge pile of sources and quotes and whatnot – and before the actual "writing" part, the part that involves making sure you have all the citations correct for the sources, maybe going over the sources to highlight what passages you will quote verbatim, organizing them (historically by putting things on 3x5 cards and moving them around on a surface), and generally wrangling all the materials you are going to use into shape to be used?

I think this is often just thought of as part of "research", but when I'm doing a resource-dense project, it's not at all negligible. It takes a huge amount of time, and is exceptionally hard on my body. I'd like, if nothing else, to complain about it, and not having a word for it makes that hard.

2)

I don't suppose there's some, perhaps undocumented, way to use Dreamwidth's post-via-email feature with manually set dates? So you email in a journal entry to a specific date in the past? This doesn't appear among the options for post headers in the docs.

I am working on a large geopolitics project where I am trying to construct a two-year long timeline, and it dawns on me one of the easiest ways to do that might be to set up a personal comm on DW and literally post each timeline-entry as a comm entry. But maybe not if I have to go through the web interface, because that would be kind of miserable; I work via email.
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Friday, September 26th, 2025 06:32 pm
For reasons, I ran some errands today so Adrian and Cattitude could stay home.

The main goal was to take a bathrobe to the Zipper Hospital, and ask them to replace the damaged zipper. So I did that, and was surprised by the sign saying they took cash and checks. Cash only would have surprised me less; in practice, I doubt they're being given many checks these days. They want payment in advance, but I had enough cash to cover it, so I didn't need to ask them for the location of the nearest ATM.

I then went to LA Burdick's, for a cup of hot chocolate, and a bag of chocolate-covered orange and lemon peel. The hot chocolate was good, but I spilled some on myself when I opened the takeout cup. So, I drank the hot chocolate, carefully; went to Trader Joe's; and then took the trolley home.

The trip wasn't a huge amount of walking, but it's the most I've done in the last couple of weeks. I did a little PT this afternoon as well; I've been keeping up with that pretty well.
Friday, September 26th, 2025 03:55 pm
Ten years ago at Spokane Worldcon, for which I was Assistant Tech Director, our sound designer was a DragonCon regular, and he issued an invitation to come play with him when we can. And then we couldn't until this year, when I had no obligations to our summer show. So, I messaged him that if he could figure us out a room, we'd be there. He assured us he would, told us to fill out the volunteer form and promised to message the TechOps director about us. The room turned out to be his own, in The Other Tower in the Hyatt, which was absolutely the best place for us to be.

The Trip, The Con, The Experience )
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Friday, September 26th, 2025 12:12 pm
 

Thirteen Swords That Made a Prince: Highlights From the Arms & Armory Collection, Sharang Biswas (Strange Horizons)

Biologists say it will take at least a generation for the river to recover (Klamath River Hymn), Leah Bobet (Reckoning)

Watching Migrations, Keyan Bowes (Strange Horizons)

With Only a Razor Between, Martin Cahill (Reactor)

And the Planet Loved Him, L. Chan (Clarkesworld)

Holly on the Mantel, Blood on the Hearth, Kate Francia (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

The Jacarandas Are Unimpressed By Your Show of Force, Gwynne Garfinkle (Strange Horizons)

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Gorgon, Gwynne Garfinkle (Penumbric)

In Connorville, Kathleen Jennings (Reactor)

Orders, Grace Seybold (Augur)

Brooklyn Beijing, Hannah Yang (Uncanny)

Thursday, September 25th, 2025 09:59 pm

oh god I've been in Canada long enough that "neighborly" looks WRONG without the U

Thursday, September 25th, 2025 10:20 am
 In May the subscribers of If There's Anyone Left got to read my short story, The Things You Know, The Things You Trust. Now it's free to read online! Go, read, enjoy!
Wednesday, September 24th, 2025 08:01 pm
For much of the Route 2 trip to Greenfield to visit Flo et al, the deciduous trees seemed pretty much at peak color. Not all, and it's not just West - the maple tree in Flo's yard has a few sad-looking yellow leaves, otherwise green, but a lot of the viewing was lovely, even in today's drizzle on the way back. Also, the redtop grass along the edges looked genuinely reddish-purple a couple of weeks ago but today it was looking pink.
Goal for tomorrow is to wash the various baby body fluids out of my skirt. Spit(up), urine. Fortunately not poop or blood, so not the full panoply. Everybody's fine.
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025 10:20 pm
Happy bisexual visibility day, everyone! In case anyone doesn't know, I'm bi, and yes, some of us are greedy and enjoy having partners of more than one gender.
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2025 04:49 pm
One of [personal profile] adrian_turtle's comrades from the hav invited the three of us to have lunch in their yard today, after Rosh Hashanah services. We all had a good time--I hadn't met either R or their partner Peter before, and I liked them both, as did [personal profile] cattitude (as did Adrian, of course). We sat and talked for a couple of hours: the three of us brought a vegetable frittata and an apple cake, both of which Adrian made yesterday; R. and Peter contributed salad, challah, and of course the location. It was the right amount of food for five people; we took home 1/6 of the frittata, and gave them the last slice of cake, since we have more at home.

R and Peter live in Allston, near the Packard's Corner T stop, so not in walking distance, but easy by transit. The conversation wandered, as good conversations will. We were there for a couple of hours, longer than I'd expected, and I didn't notice the time until we got home and I looked at the clock on our stove.
Monday, September 22nd, 2025 09:02 pm
I hustled out of Korean class to make sure I'd be at Alewife in time for the 7:55 PM #62. As it happened, I was there 9 minutes early. A 76 pulled up. I asked if it was really a 76. Yes. He said are you getting on or not? I said yes and did. I asked if he was very late with the scheduled 7:35. He said no, it was a special extra service. We didn't chat anymore, but I am curious. Rosh Hashanah? The equinox? Something happening at Hanscom or Lincoln Labs? I was the only passenger, possibly because nobody expected a bus at an unscheduled time.