@odd Romancelandia has entered the chat 😂

@nsmsn it's fun! 😃

@nsmsn I've used Sticker Ninja in Portland, they seem to have some worker friendly policies

@anniegreens 😂😅

@renevanbelzen sometimes, for sure -- or that I haven't really thought something through enough.

@cygnoir ooh! looks refreshing

@Annie 💜

@nsmsn 😂 amazing

📚 Heavy on the comics and art books this library run!

• Decolonizing Design
• How to Be Ace
• The Story Cure
• Dear Sophie, Love Sophie
• The Hidden Witch
• The Infinity Particle
• Sagmeister & Walsh: Beauty
• Machine Embroidered Woodlands
• Cucina Povera
• A Life in Pattern

@nsmsn I had the same thought 😂

@Claudia wow, congrats!

@jean always love a pelican spotting!

@jayeless Capi for short 😂

@ekcragg we've been digging taco night lately 🌮 if you eat fish, you can roast tilapia pretty quickly and prep toppings while it's cooking

@jamesrh what a pretty color 😍

@sherif ooh look at that collection 😃 dig your art too

@alans ugh, I'm over in Kirkland, it's so annoying

Tried a new cornmeal cobbler recipe – not sold on the texture. Should have used a pie pan to fit more, smaller biscuits. Used 2c blueberries and 6 nectarines. Subbed brown sugar in the filling which I think was a bad call – something’s a smidge off on the flavor. Baked for 32 minutes at 425.

@cdevroe I use a fanny pack instead of a purse now 😂 The purse was always sliding off my shoulder, this is hands/arms-free 🦾

@gregmoore thank you, I needed something good today 😄

@pip cool!

@hollie good day for it ❤️

@crossingthethreshold love that sky too 🤩

@leeS happy pub day! You got a great cover!

@restlesslens 🦾

@odd @nathanrhale in the US, no. Other countries have better Producer Responsibility laws than the US though 🤷‍♀️ In Washington State we got a CFL takeback program just in time for no one to buy them anymore, and that only because they contain mercury. At least LEDs last a long time!

@mossymaker yes! Spores was great 🥰 I thought this year's minicomic Woven was good too.

Today’s library haul 📚🌈

• Emergent Properties - grabbed off the quick reads
• Road to Ruin
• Earls Trip - ditto
• Welcome to St. Hell
• Neom
• The Do-Over - I follow their blog and didn’t know they had a book 😅
• Seven of Infinities
• The Witch Boy
• SFSX
• Bark

My goatsbeard is getting so big! 😍 The bees are all about it 🐝

A second goatsbeard I planted in an inadvisable spot* has resurrected itself and will need to be moved… this fall, maybe?

*I would like A Word with Past Tracy over her “it’s fine just shove it in the ground” approach 😒

First bobcat sighting in my wildlife garden!!! 😃🐆🏡 We watched it sit in the backyard for five minutes, then it meandered into the front yard and tried pouncing on something in the bushes. Funnily enough I drew a bobcat today for work 😄

Soaking up the sun on a chill Sunday 🥰

Some micro.bloggers might be interested in this conversation tomorrow Saturday May 18!

Social Norms in the IndieWeb

I’ve written some about how unclear social norms can deter inter-blog conversation. I bet folks here would have interesting thoughts compared with self-hosted sites.

Tried a new strawberry shortcake recipe. Tasted good but didn’t rise much. A few theories why:

• I used too much buttermilk
• I didn’t have a 3” cutter and sized up instead of down
• I got a new baking sheet which is a different material
• recipe should use more baking soda
• should bake at 425 not 400

I stumbled across my old iPod in a box yesterday and charged her on up. Discovered my Bluetooth speakers have an aux in and we’re off to the races! 🎶 Wonder when the last time I synced this thing was 😂 2016? Hoping I can add music to it without iTunes 🤞

Had fun browsing for books with friends at the library today! 📚 Went in to pick up Doppelganger, which I had on hold, then we poked through the fiction section and ridiculed their poor labeling system. I was the only one who found stuff – I’m willing to try random stuff as long as it’s short 🤷‍♀️

A couple neat bonsai I saw yesterday. The second one’s a wisteria, probably days from the flowers opening – will be spectacular then but I liked the cool shadow it cast now.

I was thinking about doing some planting, but with drought in the forecast I guess I should hold off another year… native plants need watering their first three years. Just a bummer when it’s such a a long wait for the next chance (some native flowers seem to only be available in spring).

A good day! Taxes and chores balanced out by several hours of fun design work, solid hangout time with husband and cats, reading a novella, and dinner including vegetables that did not take an hour to cook 🦾 I love working for myself - might not earn much but I’m way healthier and happier 🤷‍♀️

Probably I should trim these lower branches for access since even I have to duck under them, but they make such a lovely arch in the spring! Just saw a hummingbird in there too 🌸

📚 Today’s library haul:

• Goblin Girl by Moa Romanova
• Strikethrough by Silas Munro
• Dumb by Georgia Webber
• Heartstopper 5 by Alice Oseman
• Linghun by AI Jiang

Linghun was suggested by my librarian and was a Nebula nominee last year. Hopefully it’s not too horror for me!

I blazed through my last library haul so today’s is bigger 😎 A couple cookbooks, some art books, and some comics. Still going for lighter (mental) fare – but had to bring my husband to carry these for me since I still have lifting restrictions from the surgery 😹

French toast with berries for breakfast! 🍓🫐

My cat came over as I was finishing and casually took a big ol chomp of the butter before I realized what he was doing 🧈😹🤦‍♀️

Listening: Passion by Peter Gabriel

First day post-surgery (2 weeks ago today) trying to do some real work - taxes - and I fizzled after about 45 minutes 🫤 Hoping I can find the energy and brainpower for both taxes and a project scope I need to prep this week… Recovery is sooo slowwwww 🐌

I’m pretty low mental energy right now so I requested a bunch of comics and art books from the library. The Artist’s Way snuck in because I failed to re-pause my hold in time 😂 (I tried while I was waiting for my surgery but must’ve forgotten to hit save 🤷‍♀️)

Finally had some energy today after surprise gallbladder removal on Monday – but burned myself out cooking. Turns out I can handle the pain of an infected organ far longer than I should but have zero tolerance for plain food – I almost cried over an Ensure 🤣 Made white bean soup and fish tacos.

We think the coyotes might be denning in our back 40 again! Heard some cute yipping yesterday 😄

Also been hearing a varied thrush a lot – one of my few confident birdsong IDs – and finally saw it wreaking havoc in the wood chips 😂

I made the most of a morning blown by a doctor’s appointment by stopping for a waterfront walk on the way home 🌞 Gotta catch that sun whenever I can!

I recently blogged about why leaning on LLMs to do the work of reading and researching for us is a mistake:

Using LLMs to prepare summaries presumes that you will be interested in the same aspects of a piece of writing as anyone else, when what we take away from anything we read is specific to us — to our current knowledge, understanding, framework, and purpose for reading.

As someone who’s deindexed my main blog from Google to avoid turning up in their generated summaries / results, imagining people using some other LLM to summarize that essay makes me feel icky and sad 🤷‍♀️

Today’s library haul was pleasingly slender, making this a more realistic venture than many 😂 * Design for the Mind * This Country (graphic novel) * The Tea Master and the Detective * Steering the Craft * Ways of Curating

I was lucky to escape the library parking lot intact though! Never go at closing 😂

Twenty years ago today, I put on a vintage nightgown and shot a gothic self-portrait in a tree behind the college gym at 9 at night 🤷‍♀️ There was a basketball game inside so I kept hopping down and putting on an overcoat as groups of people walked by, looking super shifty 😂