elizabethmccoy | Network

We are pleas'd to announce the publickation today of Choices: Taking Decisions (Clorinda Cathcart's Circle, #25), in elecktronical form and as a pretty bound volume:

A Parliamentary election causes considerable upheaval to the summer plans of Society in general, and of Clorinda and her circle. But besides any choices concerning the government of the nation, several of them find that they have to make decisions touching on more personal matters.

though there is alas some delay in the production of the Google edition.

It is anticipat'd that the work will shortly be available via Overdrive for libraries.

The usual notes on Allusions and References have been provid'd.

anais_pf posting in

thefridayfive

1. What is a common ear worm that you get?

2. How long do they last?

3. What do you do to get rid of them?

4. What is the worst ear worm you've ever had?

5. Do you get some guilty pleasure in passing the ear worm along?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

stonepicnicking_okapi

Today, my baby turns 11! Happy birthday Minisculus!

1. I need to make the cake. Now. [Edited to add: it's in the oven now]

2. The other big thing is that BTS dropped their new album Arirang. The seven have finished their military service obligation and are getting ready to go on a world tour. They performed a one-hour showcase of the new songs in a historic square in Seoul and now are making the rounds doing promotions.

I like the album more and more as I listen to it. I am so glad I got the Netflix. I think I have watched the showcase at least 10 times (more in bits and pieces) since it aired live on Saturday morning. I pre-ordered a version of the album and it came but I wasn't entirely smitten with my photocards so I ordered a different version of the album today which comes with STICKERS (very important) and photocards I think I am going to like more. For ARMY reading this, I got the simple Rooted in Music version and the other version I ordered today is Living Legends. Needless to say, I did not tell the boys' father I ordered another version of the same album. These are the secrets which keep a marriage strong. I am looking forward to

bethctg visiting in August and going to the concert when they come here. RM seems to be recovering from his sprained ankle and I hope the boys stay healthy and strong for the long journey ahead. They performed at the Guggenheim in NYC which was very nice, elegant, classy. I will be posting videos and fan cams as we go along. They did a Spotify event in NYC and were looking very good, more fuck boy style.

So when I was a nurse in the nursing home a long time ago, there was a resident who was a fan of Prince and she had a little VCR and watched Prince videos (concerts, Purple Rain, etc) day and night and I always thought it was a bit bizarre but I will be her one day with my BTS videos.

3. So air force guy moved two weeks ago and I have been filling in here and there at work, picking up shifts when regulars go on vacation or call out. I had a VERY stressful lady last week. I had a quiet guy yesterday. I am supposed to start a regular next Wednesday. I still have jazz man and my Indian lady as regulars.

4. Minor is doing track and chorus. Minisculus is doing soccer and gaming.

5. I am reading The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher. I am listening to Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals read by the author Oliver Burkeman. Stil trying to get through the contemporary black poetry anthology This is Honey.

6. I watched The Glass Onion (Knives Out) and loved it. This is my kind of film. I really loved Brick, too, back in the day.

Here is a fan cam of the Spotify event:

Watch on YouTube

5. No weight loss. Sigh.

stonepicnicking_okapi

Wednesday's word is a day late...

...theremin.

a purely melodic electronic musical instrument typically played by moving the hands in the electromagnetic fields surrounding two projecting antennae.

Watch on YouTube

---

I read this in The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher which is this months's book over at the DW bookclub_dw:

...All that buildup and it didn't even make a noise. I don't know what noise I wanted it to make. Glorp or some kinda theremin shit.

stonepicnicking_okapi

The Black Girl Comes To Dinner by Taylor Byas

We drive into the belly of Alabama,
where God tweezed the highway’s two lanes
down to one, where my stomach
bottoms out on each brakeless fall.

Where God tweezed the highway’s two lanes
with heat, a mirage of water shimmers into view then
bottoms out. On each brakeless fall,
I almost tell you what I’m thinking, my mouth brimming

with heat. A mirage of water shimmers into view then
disappears beneath your tires.
I almost tell you what I’m thinking, my mouth brimming
with blues. Muddy Waters’ croon

disappears beneath your tires.
I want to say I’m nervous beneath a sky brilliant
with blues. Muddy Waters’ croon,
the only loving I’m willing to feel right now, the only loving

I want. To say I’m nervous beneath a sky brilliant
enough to keep me safe means to face what night brings.
The only loving I’m willing to feel right now, the only loving
that will calm me—I need you to tell me I am

enough. To keep me safe means to face what night brings
to the black girl in a sundown town—
that will calm me. I need you to tell me I am
safe. That they will love me, that the night will not gift fire

to the black girl in a sundown town.
Your grandmother folds me into her arms and I try to feel
safe. That they will love me, that the night will not gift fire
are mantras to repeat as

your grandmother folds me into her arms. And I try to feel
grateful. But get home before it’s too late and watch out for the flags
are mantras to repeat as
we drive into the belly of Alabama.

oursin

Bit of a flurry of Misguided Spam: this one is quite funny:

[W]e're working with other archivists that are offering historical resources.‍
I’m currently working with a few archivists on campaigns that are getting their sales teams meetings with warm leads every month. We’re targeting people who need historical resources using personalized email sequences.
If I could help you connect with potential clients like this, would that be helpful to you?‍

WOT. Unless this is some kind of operation like that BM curator who was selling off stuff from the storerooms, what kind of money do they honestly think there is in ARCHIVES??? Sales teams - No Can Haz.

Another one of the usual 'Contribute your article/join our editorial board/reviewer team' from an international journal... offering a space for the exchange of powerful ideas among academics and experts which cannot distinguish between the title of a book I reviewed and anything I actually wrote my own self.

This one is frankly cheeky, if presumably being spammed at a vast array of people?

I am sure you're quite busy, but I would appreciate if you could take a moment to my below request.
Well, our Open Access Journal of Advances in Complementary & Alternative Medicine (ACAM) is scheduled to release its Volume 9 Issue 2 by 6thApril, but we are in deficit of one article. So, is it possible for you to support us with any of your manuscript to achieve this goal?
Appreciate if you could provide your acknowledgement within 24 hrs.

Presumably they are anticipating recipients will stick prompts into ChatGP or whatever, though you'd think if it's that urgent they'd do it themselves.

Am also being followed on Bluesky by very dubious looking 'Global' conferences within my fields of interest. Suspect these are a racket.

***

However, in realm of being A Real Nexpert, gave a presentation at Institution With Which I Am Now Affiliated yesterday and I think it went quite well, insofar as there was a certain amount of discussion and people coming up and asking questions afterwards.

Also got 2 compliments from much younger persons on hair (green streaks in) though as one was outside the Scientology HQ in Tottenham Court Road I fear this may be one of their recruitment strategies.

oursin

Happy birthday,

robling_t!

starwatcher

Grab them here.

Pass it on wherever you like.

starwatcher

Does anyone know Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles? Probably not; it goes back to 1979. But I listen to the "Oldies" station on the car radio, or if I want music in the house, and I've heard it often enough that I recognize it.

The entrance to the chorus (?) is a female voice singing, "Oh, ah-oh!" (At about the 30-second mark on the video.)

So Monday evening, I was out cleaning pump filters for the pond and water tubs, and a bird was calling nearby. I swear, part of his call matched the "ah-oh" in cadence and note-interval. (My ear isn't good enough to know if it was the right notes, or just the right relationship between notes.) It was distinct enough, and recognizable enough, that it immediately reminded me of the song, and there I was, trying to sing it.

(Unfortunately -- or maybe fortunately? -- I know only four lines of the song, two of which are, "Video Killed the Radio Star." LOL!)

I wasn't able to get a visual sighting of the bird, but it wasn't one I recognize by call. We don't have that many varieties of birds around here, and I know most of the calls. (House finch, dove, mockingbird, grackle, meadowlark, quail are most common.) It could have been passing through, heading for more northern latitudes. I'll be alert for hearing it again, but it could well have been a one-time occurrence.

Nothing big, here. Just a possibly interesting snippet of outdoor life in rural New Mexico.

troisoiseaux

Read Bog Queen by Anna North, a well-pieced-together pocket watch of a novel about the discovery of an Iron Age bog body in the West Midlands, England, in 2018, split between the perspectives of a forensic anthropologist determined to figure out how this woman died while navigating the competing interests of local environmentalists who want to rewild the bog where she was found, the peat company that owns it, and the relative of a 1960s murder victim believed to also be buried there; of the Iron Age woman, a young druid growing into her role during a time of shifting alliances and growing Roman influence; and, interwoven between the two in brief vignettes, the bog (or rather, the moss?) itself.

Read Diary of a Cranky Bookworm by Aster Glenn Gray (DW's own

osprey_archer!), which was a delight. On a general note, this is a fun and thoughtful coming-of-age YA novel in which the characters are great both at being characters and at feeling like people; on a personal one, this was very fun to read as a book about a bookworm by someone who I became friends with over books, because protagonist Sage's literary landscape felt immediately and intimately familiar. :)

Current Music: Growing Up - Hilary Duff

sovay

The train bears

selkie southward again: we have affirmed that the important part is not the leaving, but the coming back. This visit was somewhat more flying than usual and complicated by just about everyone on both sides having run out of running on fumes some time last year if not the previous decade, but we had celebration and I was finally able to give her the shells and stones I had collected for her five months ago on Cape Cod, reminders of northern Atlantic.

spatch and I have decided never again to pay attention to his phone when driving into Brookline. Making our way home from South Station, I was so pleased to see that the superstructure of the Northern Avenue Bridge has not yet been demolished and still stands as an installation of rust-flaked trusses, permanently perpendicular to its successor's flat concrete. What I would have called the new North Washington Street Bridge has been designated the Bill Russell Bridge since I first glimpsed it in miniature of the Zakim, a parabolic stickleback of white fish bones. We parked in the lot of Bill & Bob's for the first roast beef sandwiches of the season, so early the picnic tables had not been set up, and were introduced by WERS to the total delight of They Might Be Giants' "Wu-Tang" (2026) as we wound past the un-iced Mystic. Two days after a snow that stuck to all the branches, it is short-sleeved catkin spring, drive-with-the-windows-down weather. We watched the Charles and the Fort Point Channel scatter the same reflective blue as the sky.

Current Music: Talking Heads, "Creatures of Love"

oursin

What I read

Finished High Stakes. I previously noted a pattern in Dick Francis of the conditional rather than utter win.

Antonia Hodgson, The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path Trilogy, #1) (2025) - think I picked this up as a Kobo deal, because people were mentioning it? I realise that I am no longer in the habit of reading fat multi-volume fantasies of this ilk. I found it all a bit much, really.

Then did some nibbling (what do Tiggers eat?) and then settled into a re-read of Barbara Hambly, The Nubian's Curse, not one of the top Benjamin Januarys perhaps but still pretty good. Possibly when I am in that sort of phase I should just go Hambly/Haddam/Paretsky/Cross?

Currently Reading

Dorothy Richardson, Honeycomb (Pilgrimage, #3) (1917) for online reading group.

Up next

Today's Kobo Deal was the latest Jonathan Kellerman Alex Delaware thriller, Jigsaw, so probably that.

Then possibly more Hambly.

At some point must read Adania Shibli, Minor Detail (2017) for the in-person reading group.

magid posting in

agonyaunt

From today’s NY Times, in the weekly Social Q’s column.

Our youngest, who is 37 and uses they/them pronouns, has a long history of psychological problems. They sent a text informing us that they no longer want to interact with family members, and that if we want to meet with them, they require an advocate to be present. This child lives in our second home. They don’t pay rent, but they have a job that covers food and health insurance costs. We’re not sure what caused the break. They had a very bad interaction with our son, and we asked them to work it out themselves. But our son wants nothing to do with his sibling, and my husband wants to stop communicating with them, too. He says they are toxic. I am heartbroken. What should I do?

MOTHER

( Read more... )

oursin

Happy birthday,

staranise!

nineveh_uk

Well it was for a few days. But it is the nature of spring to be fickle, so I shall endure the appearance of equinoctial gales and hope that the cherries don't blossom until later in the week or it will disappear in the closest thing to a blizzard of this winter. I have been failing to write a post because I should be writing about seeing Peter Grimes (brilliant, very dramatic), or more Olympics, or visiting my parents, or reading A Month in the Country (rich and lovely) and it has not happened. Admittedly having a cold has not helped. And I certainly don't want to try to think of something to say about geopolitics.

So when I was reminded of the existence of this song/vid, I thought, I should post that. It is very relatable, literally and metaphorically. Who has never been the penguin who doesn't want to get out of his futon?

Watch on YouTube

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear Pay Dirt,
My husband and I are fortunate enough to be homeowners with pretty good credit. We get credit card and loan offers in the mail all the time. I’ve been trying to declutter our house, and junk mail is a big issue. Everything goes on the entry way table and its always overflowing. I set up a recycle bin in the entry way for just such physical spam, but my husband won’t use it because he says we have to SHRED all those offers, and our shredder is not big enough to deal with all the constant clutter! Also, the shredder is in his office, and he only gets to it every other month or so, so the workflow doesn’t keep up.

I know that’s the best, most secure way to deal with junk. But really, our recycle bin is kept in the garage until the night before the garbage is collected., then we roll it out to the curb. We always put other recycling on top of the mail.

Is it really that dangerous to just toss those mailers as is? Maybe tear them up by hand first? Please help!
—Drowning in Junk Mail

( Read more... )

sovay

My poem "ἀγκυλοθάλασσος" has been accepted by Strange Horizons. I am indebted to

radiantfracture for his Twine prompt generator designed to produce scientific-sounding compound adjectives and nouns, in this case the irresistible "ankylothalassic" from ἀγκύλος "crooked, bent" and θάλασσα "the sea." I rendered it back into classical Greek and José Esteban Muñoz and Twelfth Night got in there along the way. It was written on New Year's Eve.

While I was out of ambit of the internet for almost all of yesterday, Reckoning: It Was Paradise hit the digital shelves. It is the special issue of the journal of environmental justice on war and conflict and contains a poem of mine which will go live on the internet in a month, or you could pick it up now with the rest of the shatteringly topical e-book if you don't feel like preordering it in print. I wrote it last summer after the—first—U.S. strikes on Iran. I taught myself a small amount of Elamite cuneiform for it. It should not have come around to such relevance again.

The designer of the Paleontological Research Institute's long-running pre-saurian Paleozoic Pals has just branched out into Pleistocene mammals with a Kickstarter for Cenozoic Snuggles. I have put in for a Glyptodon.

I may have slept nine hours. I just heard Rabbitology's "The Bog Bodies" (2026).

Current Music: Charlotte Sands, "Satellite"

conuly posting in

agonyaunt

Dear How to Do It,
I’m an 18-year-old guy, and I’ve recently had to move in with my older sister and her husband. My brother-in-law, “Kenneth,” is honestly the most amazing guy I’ve ever met. He’s kind, funny, and built like a Greek god. He’s also super traditional and religious, which is part of why I’m so confused.
Lately, I feel like there’s this insane sexual tension between us. He walks around the house in just sweatpants with no underwear, and the bulge is so obvious. I feel like he has to know what he’s doing. Today, he was working out shirtless, and I asked if I could just sit and watch. He said yes, no questions asked, and worked out for a full hour. He was lifting weights and flexing right in front of me.

To me, this is a clear sign. A straight guy wouldn’t let another guy just watch him work out, would he? He has to be into it. But he’s also my sister’s husband, and he’s super religious, so it’s all so complicated. I’m starting to think about ways to make a move, to show him I’m interested. I’m convinced he wants it too. My question is: Am I right? Is he giving me signals, or am I imagining this?
—Confused and Craving

( Read more... )

oursin

Okay, it was lovely to see the heron again on my walk today. I wonder if it had decided that the eco-pond, with its shoals of Invasive Predatory Goldfish which people have dumped in it to the detriment of other life (frogs, newts, dragonflies) is a delicious all-you-can-eat buffet.

Assuming it is the same heron and that the first did not just tell a friend.

***

In more annoying news, today partner had a go at fixing my printer, which has been giving 'Paper Jam in Tray 1' error messages -

- and after doing pretty much the equivalent of open heart surgery on the thing, lo and behold, there was, entirely concealed from view, a page jammed in the works.

I depose that having to eviscerate a printer to discover this is something of a design fault?

Unfortunately, once the printer was put back together, it decided that the gate was open and it was not going to print anything.

Partner is going to have another go at it tomorrow, but I suspect that New Printer is in the future.

***

Meanwhile, I copied my paper for tomorrow to a memory-stick and took it to partner's computer so that I could print it out there.

This was accomplished successfully.

sovay

selkie's birthday was duly observed with my parents and my husbands, a meal of much carnivory, and an apricot marmalade cake doused in whipped cream, strawberry sugar, and candles that burned like driftwood salts. Many deeply goofy photos were taken of various combinations of us. So much is wrong with the world and it is still true that my family for an evening is happy. A photogenic snow began to drift the streets as I drove everyone home.

Current Music: Emitt Rhodes, "With My Face on the Floor"

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elizabethmccoy

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Page Summary

the_comfortable_courtesan - Another publickation day
anais_pf in thefridayfive - The Friday Five for 27 March 2026
stonepicnicking_okapi - Into the Void: Baby not Baby no more edition
stonepicnicking_okapi - Word: Theremin
stonepicnicking_okapi - Poet's Corner: The Black Girl Comes to Dinner by Taylor Byas
oursin - I am a Nexpert, but not That Nexpert
oursin - (no subject)
starwatcher - Cozy Mystery sale through March 29
starwatcher - Birds singing oldies
troisoiseaux - Reading Wednesday
sovay - Am I one of those human beings?
oursin - Wednesday had sushi for lunch for the first time in aaaaggggeesss
magid in agonyaunt - Our Youngest Child Has Cut Ties With Our Family. Help!
oursin - (no subject)
nineveh_uk - Spring! Spring! And a penguin
conuly in agonyaunt - (no subject)
sovay - I'm yours in the day and the dead of night
conuly in agonyaunt - My Sister’s Husband Is Agreeing to Things No Straight Man Would. It’s a Sign.
oursin - Not sure the nature was exactly healing to the troubled spirit....
sovay - Just took time to say, I'll drop you a line

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Page generated Mar. 27th, 2026 01:02 pm

Elizabeth McCoy

Network

Another publickation day

The Friday Five for 27 March 2026

Into the Void: Baby not Baby no more edition

Word: Theremin

Poet's Corner: The Black Girl Comes to Dinner by Taylor Byas

I am a Nexpert, but not That Nexpert

(no subject)

Cozy Mystery sale through March 29

Birds singing oldies

Reading Wednesday

Am I one of those human beings?

Wednesday had sushi for lunch for the first time in aaaaggggeesss

Our Youngest Child Has Cut Ties With Our Family. Help!

(no subject)

Spring! Spring! And a penguin

(no subject)

I'm yours in the day and the dead of night

My Sister’s Husband Is Agreeing to Things No Straight Man Would. It’s a Sign.

Not sure the nature was exactly healing to the troubled spirit....

Just took time to say, I'll drop you a line

Profile (About Me)

July 2019

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