It was a running joke when I was growing up there 30-mumble years ago that getting stuck behind a motorcade was a legit reason for being late to work, and I can't imagine that's changed.
SFF writer, hardingfele player, tracker, librarian. Longer writings and book reviews at welltemperedwriter.wordpress.com. masto: welltemperedwriter@wandering.shop, insta: datamuse. SFWA, Codexian. Back Shakespeare Adjacent on Kickstarter!
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It was a running joke when I was growing up there 30-mumble years ago that getting stuck behind a motorcade was a legit reason for being late to work, and I can't imagine that's changed.
Oh my god
But, yeah. A friend’s mom is convinced I’m going to get shot on the street in Seattle.
I’m willing to believe that some people don’t bother reporting things, just based on local anecdotal experience, but I find it far less likely that it’s at the scale that would be necessary, you know?
Every time some blowhard (i.e., the president) goes on about crime in D.C. today I think about the city’s homicide rate when I was growing up in Silver Spring in the 1980s. Golden Age fallacy is a hell of a drug.
As a one-time academic librarian, unfortunately, yes.
I used to ride between D.C. and Springfield in college, which at the time was relatively affordable and not much slower than flying (in part because the nearest airport was an hour away by bus). But that’s about the only place it was feasible.
This is true. I grew up in Maryland and only went west of Appalachia a couple of times before I became an adult. When I was 18 I took a road trip from Massachusetts to New Mexico that permanently altered my sense of the size of the U.S.
YES
Ok, hear me out. A Lord of the Rings re-make, but with these two taking the One Ring to Mordor:
I’ve seen several that were obviously that and here I can’t decide tbh
Nope. Nope nope nope nope absolutely not.
It do be like that though
Feeling glad to be in the PNW right now 😳
One of my favorites. Probably time for a re-read.
Had me at the title.
My parents fell down the Fox-hole years ago. They are, or used to be, fairly intelligent people. And they don’t really care about pronouns in a signature as such. But this way, they don’t have to try to understand the worldview of someone who uses them. They can just dismiss it all.
This kind of enthusiasm from the non-political CDC staff - the clapping, shouting, nonstop handshakes - for the now-resigned CDC leadership is something that Trump Admin officials will never have. Which will only make them hate the competent administers even more.
I might be a certified tracker. (I *am* a certified tracker.) I also just lost one of those plastic doohickeys you use to close a bag of bread. On the kitchen counter. Where I'd just set it down. #ADHDsayswhat
Big Watership Down energy
NEW: The first evidence of a solar take-off in Africa☀️✈️ x33 rise in Algeria solar panel imports in the 12 mths to June 2025, compared to previous 12 mths. x8 in Zambia x7 in Botswana x6 in Sudan x3 in each of Liberia, DRC, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia 🧵
I should add that I've been out of the field for a couple of years now, and I know there are some alternatives out there that I was just beginning to build awareness of when I left. That's a good thing regardless; overly depending on a single product or source has obvious drawbacks.
When I worked as an academic librarian Google Scholar was the only way we had to do forward citation searching (finding out which subsequent articles cite a specific source). With a couple of exceptions we simply could not afford the databases which offered this (chiefly Science Citation Index).
My husband not infrequently says, "That was very good and I didn't like it."
Hey journalists, you should interview the exvangelicals about how James Dobson made so many of us estranged from our families, instead of using whitewashed words like "influential" to describe this man
Boringly corporate is now woke, apparently
I haven’t said anything because I skipped the ceremony, but one hears things.
Riding on the dashboard of my caaaaaaaar…
Is that what he thought Paradise by the Dashboard Light meant
Do you think some of it might be a kind of, "THEN they'll see we were right all along!"? I've run across that fairly often.
it me
Or this dude
Introduce yourself with the last five concerts you attended: Weird Al Yankovic Seattle Modern Orchestra Faun Godspeed You! Black Emperor Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
I mean debating Aristotle over brisket sounds kinda fun but why would I pay this place for it when I could do it for the cost of a brisket?
The readings are public, there were hundreds of people there, and this was at least a decade ago. I have no idea.
I wasn’t at that panel but I was at a Clarion West reading he did YEARS ago where someone asked nearly the same question and it’s one of two times in my life I’ve heard an actual collective gasp. (His response was that the question was appalling and he wasn’t going to answer it.)
We may have found the last person on the Internet who hasn’t read that story
I mean, I just learned “Gen Goonie” just now from the quoted post and my immediate reaction is “…no I’m not, fuck that” so in conclusion you are correct
Shelly’s Leg remains my favorite name for a gay bar ever, because it was literally named for Shelly’s leg
Also sandwiches.
I spend a lot of time in cities and rural areas both and have seen way more shit in the latter.
I will also note that every. single. issue. of Uncanny is available to libraries through Kobo at cover price.
The last time I was there, some asshole had built a giant fence around the White House.
I adored LotR but would I hand it to my niece? Well, if I thought she would like it. A lot of these discussions don’t seem to take the personal taste of the readers into account. Do the people asking know anything about what the people they’re buying for like to read?
Thank you!
So far, yes. If for some reason we can't we've got some potential homes lined up. At this point about the only reason we wouldn't would be if integration with our other cats goes badly--we're in the early stages of that right now, so we'll see how it goes!
Aw, they're so cute!
A friend posited the term "torbie", which is apparently something of a mix between tabby and tortie. The first photos I got mostly showed her spots and stripes (she approached my husband at the site where we're building a house--we think she was dumped, it's a pretty remote spot).
The spouse and I have been having a tough go of it recently (I mean who hasn't) and while a kitten is definitely an unlooked-for expense, she really has lifted our spirits.
How fortuitous that the Cat Distribution System made a delivery this week
Love that I learned about this from watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit
So am I. But not, I reckon, in the same way. (That incident’s the first time I really recall hearing about him, and it cemented my opinion that he’s a total shit. Nothing he’s done since has persuaded me otherwise.)
Squeaky, yet fierce!
Today I spent half an hour staring at a talus slope near Mount Rainier, looking for pikas. (Saw one, too.) #citizenscience
I got interested in it from you talking about it, in fact! Good movie.
IDK about Bsky *alone*, because if I start following someone here who seems interesting then I'll look to see if they have a newsletter or blog or something, which is how I learn more about their work, and I've definitely bought books as a result of that. (And subscribed to newsletters/Patreons.)
The TOES
Not me suddenly remembering the *daily* harassment in French class by a trio of dudes who are probably fine upstanding citizens now 🙃
As a former librarian I can neither confirm nor deny (but that's totally what happened).
The older I get the more real this feels.
There’s an outside possibility of something like that, admittedly.
Also debating what to do at #WorldCon, aside from a #Codex gathering I've signed up for. I haven't been to a con in a lot of years, I'm on a budget this month for reasons, and I'm not sure I remember how.
Today I read most of a book I'm reviewing for Library Journal, applied for a freelance gig, went for a walk, got my fiddle out for the first time in a few weeks, and spent a solid half hour listening to pika and marmot calls in prep for a citizen science volunteer stint next week. #dontlookdown
Hi, so AI killed my career(s) and I'm barely (sometimes not) making rent. People have been telling me to start a gofundme but I feel weird about that. But I thought maybe if I was contributing something? SOO I started making shitposting shirts. Can you share this and maybe think about grabbing some?
As a librarian and bibliographer I appreciate Lehrer’s commitment to the bit.
I thought we would all go together when we went.
I worked in academia for eighteen years and never once saw anything like this.
You should definitely not be surprised. 😉 (He's lucky I love him, because the White River Amphitheater parking situation is firmly situated in one of the circles of hell.)
#WorldCon is coming up and I haven't even had a minute to look at the schedule. I already know that I'm going to #WritersWithDrinks at #TownHallSeattle. But I will miss Friday evening because I'm taking my spouse to see #WeirdAl. Anyway what should I absolutely *not* miss?
I’ve read two popular science/nature books in a row now where the author mentions some insight from ChatGPT in the text. These “insights” are completely unremarkable and I feel embarrassed for the authors. (Books aren’t published yet.) Just, why.
I'm interested
Pitfall! and the Pendulum
On #tracking in fiction and real life (TVTropes is more accurate than you'd think!), and how I incorporated it into my story for #ShakespeareAdjacent, "Bitter Waters; or, The Villain's Appointment." #Kickstarter is 89% funded and closes in two days! welltemperedwriter.wordpress.com/2025/07/21/o...
Oh god I had that album
I thought a red herring was communism. Wait, I have that backwards.
Sometimes a fish is just a fish
The #ShakespeareAdjacent #Kickstarter is nearing its final week! Peep the opening of my contribution in the replies:
jesus christ
The rest of the story appears in the #ShakespeareAdjacent #Kickstarter, along with 12 other Bard-inspired stories. Back it here: www.kickstarter.com/projects/lou...
The reverend looked from one of them to the other as though trying to piece together a puzzle. “Any hunter might mistake the trail, and if absence denotes mischief, then there is at least another suspect,” Benedicta said. “That’s what I came to tell you. Jon the Bastard is gone as well.” 19/
I do not know what Jean-Claude saw, nor her ladyship. But I know what I saw this morning: Pınar shocked to her very core by the accusation.” “You would say that your own comrades are mistaken?” Talulla asked, and forced herself not to look away from that piercing gaze. 18/
“Why should I ask Jean-Claude to doubt the truth of his own eyes?” Aslan demanded. “And La Doña as well?” “Oh, I don’t know,” Benedicta said. “Perhaps because you ought to know your own daughter, sir, well enough to know whether she would betray her love the very night before its plighting. 17/
Because I can say that I do not, and were he one of my comrades, I would have heard some boast about it ere now.” “Indeed,” the reverend said. “Accusations without specifics have a way of just being rumors.” 16/
“And how am I to gainsay the words of those who saw her, in the arms of some wretch of La Doña’s company? When one of them was the very man she was to marry this morning?” “Did they?” Benedicta said. Her gaze still had not left Talulla. “Does anyone know who the man was? 15/
“And if she has ridden away from such harsh words, Uncle, could you blame her?” Talulla said. “She has been accused of a vile thing, a thing no more in her capacity than would be betraying the whole town to its worst enemy.” 14/
“She would compound her betrayal with flight!” Aslan said. “Wayward child! She argued her innocence against accusation this morning, and flees from it in the afternoon. Perhaps she has ridden into the scablands to die.” “These are strong words, sir,” Benedicta said. 13/
He knew the rough lands outside of town even better than Talulla, whose ranch lay half a day’s ride away. “After this morning, were I she, I might well need a ride to clear my head,” Benedicta said, her gaze resting on Talulla. 12/
“What do you think she has done?” the reverend asked. “She would not leave the town, surely? Not now?” He was of a mendicant order, though since his arrival in the town of Orta some years past he had rarely left it, and never for long. 11/
“Gone?” he repeated, as though he had never heard the word before. His eyes were bloodshot, which might bespeak weeping, whiskey, or both. “Yes,” Talulla said, with rising impatience. “I mean to go to the stables and see whether any of the horses are missing.” 10/
Talulla turned with reluctance. “Niece?” “Uncle,” Talulla said, unable to keep an edge out of her voice. “Pınar has gone.” She was a guest in his house, but she was not his daughter, nor someone over whom he had a father’s authority. If he forgot that in his consternation, she would remind him. 9/
“I did not,” Benedicta said. “But I came straight from the jail, where there is yet other news.” Her gun was on her hip, where it was not supposed to be while in town; La Doña must be wroth indeed. “What has happened?” Her uncle Aslan’s voice came from behind her... 8/
Pınar it was who’d told her of the other woman’s passion, against Talulla’s every observation, and she caught herself looking for some sign of it in Benedicta’s speech and manner. Not now! 7/
...but when she spoke, her tone was serious. “How does your cousin?” she asked, as Talulla did her best to banish the sudden flush of heat suffusing her body and, she was sure, darkening her face. 6/
At the woman’s shoulder hovered the reverend, wearing his customary expression of solicitous humility. “Benedicta,” Talulla said, horrified at the slight gasp that accompanied the name. Benedicta’s head tilted to one side, with a half-grin that said she’d caught that gasp... 5/
But her own steps hastened toward the house’s front door, which she opened to brutal heat and the sight of Benedicta in her sandy brown riding leathers and tight-braided red hair, one hand raised as though to knock. 4/
Harsh desert sunlight streamed through the windows of the room beyond, lighting up Pınar’s empty bed with its covers thrown back. The tray clattered as Talulla set it down on the dressing table. Surely Pınar had only gone into the bathroom, or the garden, or her father’s study. 3/
Talulla came back down the hallway from the kitchen bearing a tray laden with a steaming pot of tea and a pair of cups, then paused. The door to her cousin’s room stood ajar. Not how she’d left it. “Pınar?” she said, nudging the door further open with her foot. 2/
The #ShakespeareAdjacent #Kickstarter is nearing its final week! Peep the opening of my contribution in the replies:
Yessssss he’s so good!