kiya

We're over the halfway line at

snowflake_challenge, and this challenge wants us to introspect about how we turn things out.

Challenge #8

Talk about your creative process.

( Not exactly a process that has a lot of visible things )

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown - My New Philosophy

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fandom snowflake: 2026

Posted by Frances Langum

https://crooksandliars.com/2026/01/john-amato-interviewed-professional-left

John Amato visits The Professional Left Podcast to discuss his journey from music to political blogging, including his early experiences with video content creation and sharing during the 2000s. Our convo covers the evolution of digital media in politics, with particular focus on the early days of blogging and the collaborative spirit among left-leaning bloggers who shared content through blog roundups. We conclude with reflections on media credibility and misinformation, as well as discussions about favorite TV shows and movies from 2025.

Don't forget that John still needs our help to recover his tremendous loss during the Pacific Palisades wildfire last year.

Open thread below...

https://crooksandliars.com/2026/01/john-amato-interviewed-professional-left

I have once again successfully registered for the All Star 2 conference on Star Island.

Given the general sucktasticness of the last several months, it's good to have something to look forward to.

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star island

Today was the yahrzeit of the molasses flood. I was last at Langone Park for the centenary, since which time the field has been renovated and a new marker erected in memory of the disaster and its dead. Seven years ago feels nearly a century itself.

Speaking of man-made needless awfulness, I have been made aware of the locally vetted aggregate of Stand with Minnesota, a directory of mutual aid, fundraisers, and on-the-ground support against the onslaught of ICE. All could use donations, since internet hugs are of limited efficacy against tear gas, batons, bullets to the face and legs. Twenty-three years ago feels like several worldlines back, but the Department of Homeland Security sounded absurdly, arrogantly dystopian then.

The fourth and last of this week's doctors' appointments concluded with an inhaler and instructions to sleep as much as possible. My ability to watch movies remains on some kind of mental fritz which upsets me, but I liked running across these poems.

Current Music: Wolf Alice, "Planet Hunter"

All this horror and heroism in Minneapolis-St. Paul of late...in the cities that gave us Charles Schulz of all people.

Current Mood: melancholy

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1. I am ridiculous and not even managing to keep up with Dreamwidth.

2. Just listened to Bujold's Penric's Demon in audio. Aww!

3. Watching Younger on Netflix, and wow, nothing dates an American show like all of the regular cast members being white. In New York. (Other than that, it's light fun and about what I'm in the mood for. Kind of like an Amy Sherman-Palladino show with less wealth porn.) Also started season 2 of The Pitt, despite intending to rewatch season 1 first.

4. (Burying the lede.) Andrew's surgery went well! We played two games of Scrabble this morning. I'm spending most of my time at the hospital.[a] Halle is confused by his absence and seeking an injunction.

[a] I've spent so long in North American fandoms that I've forgotten when we put "the" in front of "hospital", but I'm pretty sure this is one of those times, it being a specific hospital.

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How is it only the third Thursday of the year? It feels like it should be the twelfth Thursday at the very least!

Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!

Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!

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community: thursday recs

From a December post in

thefridayfive. I've been holding onto this one for a bit, waiting on life to give me some answers.

1. What is one thing about you that you hate?
I don't know if hate is the correct word, but I have been in a years-long struggle to feel like someone who is not anxious, worried, or scared. If I'm honest I think too many hard things have been placed on these bones, but these bones are also holding it all up still, at least for the time being. But those rare days where I don't wake up with my body already buzzing with anxiety and tension, well, I want to snatch them close and keep them all to myself.

2. What is one thing about you that you love?
I care deeply about, well... most things....our Lovely Planet and all of her Inhabitants, human and non-human, flora and fauna and mineral and waters, flowing or stagnant. I try very hard to walk through the world lightly without harming others. This is an impossible feat, really, but I try. And do you know what a joy it is to love the Earth and everything about her? It is a heady wine, at times.

3. If you had to change one thing about you what would it be and why?
I'd be less hard on myself, and live with more confidence. Please give me the confidence of a mediocre white man in a white collar environment. Though if I'm honest, I have learned there is a lot of power in being vulnerable with others.

4. What is one word that you would use to define yourself?
Grounded. More as in tree roots, tangled but strong, rather than centered or balanced in any way.

5. Imagine what you would look like in a perfect world...what do you look like?
I wouldn't be me if I didn't look like me, now would I? Or maybe, since we look different from day to day and year to year, maybe I'd just like to look healthy. Although "healthy" has so many harmful judgements assigned to it - here I mean... not sickly. I want to look both soft and hard and maybe vaguely androgynous - and honestly I'm already doing that pretty well, just sittin' here in my body. Or perhaps I don't want to look like anything - well, except, it would be nice if I could look like I knew what I was doing*.

*(I do not know what I am doing, at any given time.)

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Oops, I was so sleepy last night that I went to bed at 20:00, and I forgot to plug in my phone, so I woke to a very low battery, which will complicate my morning phone call.

Luckily, it turned out that today is the day he has am appointment at the local health center to look at the foot that has been hurting, so I was able to let it charge while I packed To get ready to head to the bus, so it was over 60% before I had to go.

I had a good day at work, but Keldor had grumpy day. He thought he had booked an appointment with a doctor, and had written down in the online form the three things he wanted to accomplish: a blood test to screen for prostate cancer, checking the foot that has been hurting, and look at the ugly growth on his skin. It turns out that what he got was an appointment with the same physical therapist he saw last time about the foot, and they had no new ideas, and suggested he try calling to see if he can get an appointment with a doctor instead. He called, left the voice mail, and an hour or so later got a call back. The part that makes him grumpy is that apparently he can’t actually request the prostate cancer test himself—if he has symptoms he can make an appointment with a doctor, and if they agree that the symptoms are concerning, then they do the test. Given that we lost a friend to prostate cancer which wasn’t caught early enough, we don’t much like this protocol, and think it should be a routine test, the same way mammograms and pap smears are. Why wait for symptoms? by then it could be too late.

After work I spent the evening, and way too late into the night dealing with Shire financial paperwork. I had to learn how to do “bokslut” (the closing of the books at the end of the year, which turns out to be a very easy task in GnuCash), and while I was at it, I cleaned up the accounts by deleting accounts that had never been used, and moving those which haven’t been used in a log time to a folder called not used anymore, and updated my readme file explaining what the various accounts are accordingly (this eliminated the last of the “no idea what this is” comments in the readme file)

Then I prepared all of the reports needed for the shire Annual Meeting on Sunday, and sent them to our “revisor” (person who checks to see if I did everything correctly, in this case, the last Exchequer) and to the Seneschal. now it is closing in on 03:00, and I really should do some more yoga and head to bed.

En kul historia från min morgon…

Jag sitter på bussen, ta ut min banan och vitaminer, åta dem, och sträcka armen över ryggstödet för att kasta bananskalen i papperskorgen som är monterade vid sidan av trappan. Men papperskorgen lutade liten åt sidan, och trycket från bananskalens slaget efter den hastiga nedstigningen gjorde att papperskorgen lutade ännu mera, och sin innehåll (bananskalen) ramlade ur, och fortsatte vidare mot golvet.

Då såg jag framför mig att nästa personen som skulle stiga på bussen skulle möta sitt slut genom att halka på ett bananskal. Därför ställde jag datorn och grejer åt sidan och tog mig upp från sätet och ner trappen, var jag fick veta att det är en jättebra design, eftersom banan hade ramlade precis i papperskorgen som stå under och lite till sidan av den jag siktade på.

Men nu sitter”min” papperskorgen ordentligt i sitt hållare, och lutar inte alls, så den nästa som har skrap att kasta inte behöver ha så mycket tur som jag hade!

Vilken snälla dåtid-jag jag har!

Min dåtid jag lämnade mig snacks på kontoret! jag har en burk pumpafrön med skäl (det har vi varit slut på hemma i flera veckor), och en burk hemgjord kex, och en glasburk smör som har suttit i mitt kyl kista under skrivbordet och smaker fortfarande bra, så sedan jag kom i till kontoret har jag ätit lite pumpafrön och kex med smör. Jag hoppas att ni också få något lite som detta som fick din dag att vara lite bättre!

energi tog slut ganska tidigt

Jag hade energi under hela jobbdagen, och jobbade utan problem tills bussen var nästan framme i Lövånger. Då packade upp mina grejer och tog sparken hemma och sätta mig på soffan tills Keldor ringde. Under tiden han körde hem hunn jag äntligen tomma kisten av käader vi tog till eventet, men då var dagens energi slut, och jag var i säng redan kl 20,00 och sov direkt.

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swedish

Today was a work from home day, as I had that doctor’s appointment that I should have gone to last week, but lost track of the days of the week, and saw the calendar reminder 20 minutes after I should have been there.

So I did the meeting to discuss the funding application for the workshop we want to run in October over zoom, and got good input, and should be able to get the application done on time.

Then the doc appointment, they said that the weird hard lump on back of my arm that I can’t quite see doesn’t look concerning

Then a long lunch break, followed by work, including a meeting with a colleague in the states to discuss ways to liik at database structure. These meetings may result in a paper. With luck it might even get my colleague’s thesis kickstarted back into progress again.

This evening was the Nordmark members meeting over zoom, and after our zoom training session.

Then I stayed up too late, and ought to go to sleep, as tomorrow I have to go into the office for the first time in weeks.

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5745

I think Hannelore is about 28 in comic time now but I also reserve the right to change this if/when it becomes necessary or I feel like it

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5745

I expected to sleep in after yesterday’s road trip, but woke at 05:34, so I got up, fed the cats, did a 15 min pilates, took my morning vitamin, and decided that I was awake enough to work for a while, so I put in 4 hours, then took an hour nap, enjoyed lunch and a game of Qwirkle with Keldor, and then resumed work while he made a new knife handle.

After work I made salad, a pear crumble (which I will eat tomorrow as it was too late to be interested in eating by the time it was done), and did some sewing. Now I have done my yoga and ought to get some sleep.

Left site ~ 09:40
Malby 10:24
Gävle 12:50
Tönnebro 13:40
Timmerå 16:00
Örnsköldsvik 17:53
home 21:26
mostly unpacked, 22:19

saw one moose, which was more animals than we saw on the way south

breakfast
market
meetings & lunch
more market
court fealty by language
serve feast
music
partial cleaning of hall
pack
yoga just after midnight & sleep

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: indescribable

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heated rivalry

We had planned to leave at 05:00, and Keldor figured that he would need only his normal 15 minutes to go from the alarm rings to out the door. So I set the dawn light to 05:40, and hoped I would wake early enough for a quick pilates, so my hips wouldn’t hurt later.

This worked well enough that I managed a four minute session before his alarm. However, even though we had packed everything last night, it was still 05:18 before we had the last things in place, cats fed, etc and we actually started driving.

Luckily, that meant that Angelika was also ready, and we had picked her up and started driving south at 05:25

We dropped off Angelika with Maria and Matts in Umeå, and continued south 07:05

Quick stop at Örnsköldsvik for a toilet at 08:30.

Timmerå 10:37, picked up Charlotte.

Tönnebro 13:06

One more stop at a random gas station , somewhere.

On site 16:59.

Check in for those of us in crash space was delayed due to last minute change in plans. The site owners decided that we were too many to sleep dormitory style in one house due to there not being tjat many toilets, so there were some emergency reshuffleing, which resulted in we four from Reengarda who were in crash space being assigned to the boat house, which is a long way away from the other houses.

So we drove out there, unloaded everything we needed to have there and settled in (this house has a refrigerator, so I emptied the ice chest into it, and put the ice in the freezer). Then we got dressed, gathered the things we’d need on site, and drove back over to the main castle area, then walked down to the house where dinner was served so the others could eat.

Then we moved over to the main hall and hung out chatting with people, and sewing,till time for court, which I enjoyed. Lots of good awards for well deserving people, the incoming Kings looked magnificent in their matching garb.

After court four musicians started playing violin, so I hung out sewing, dancing, and chatting till qiute late, then I walked back to the boathouse with Keldor’s sister and we did yoga today before heading to bed at about 02:30. An hour and a half later, I got up, went downstairs to the loo, and found poor Keldor who had been awake for 23 hours, trying to deal with the drain on the bathroom floor. He had started to shower, but as soon as the water went down the drain the toilet backed up and spit icky water all over the floor.

So I sent the event stewards an email letting them know, and went straight back to sleep

While we often leave for roadtrips to southern Sweden already on Thursday evening, this time Keldor decided that we would leave super early Friday instead. Given that there is some serious snowstorm and winds happening today, especially in the Sundsvall area, where they had thunder and lightning with the snow, but most of the extreme weather warnings are for Thursday and not Friday, this is likely a good thing.

So today started with my getting the last of the cutting for the Keldor copper trim tunic done so it is ready to sew this weekend. Then packing and organising, with breaks for food, and chores like washing the cat’s water fountain.

Now it is later than I should still be up, given that we want to pick up Angelika at 05:00.

I had planned to get up early and start laundry. I managed half of these, but the first load didn’t get in the machine till almost 09:09. I also planned to do my morning workout while it ran, but the time needed to run that load vanished to writing 2026-01-06 book review, The King’s Dragon and scrolling a bit.

Keldor went in to town to use the workshop at work to finish projects for friends we will see this weekend, and I got the last of the small final pieces for the Silk bliaut short tunic cut out. I think I can easily finish the sewing during the drive to 12th Night on Friday.

I was busy enough that I didn’t get to my workout at all till time for the evening zoom workout with friends.

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: cheerful

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Snowflake Challenge 02026 #8: Process the Creative

John Amato Interviewed By The Professional Left Podcast!

Registered!

I left my mind behind in 2015

Trump vs. Minnesota: A Realization

Not a full media update

Thursday Recs

An Olde Frīġedæġ Fif

rapport accomplished

vilken bra design

inspiring work meeting

The Slow Passage Of Time

first work day after the holidays

roadtrip home

12th Night Saturday bullet points

OMG

Drachenwald Coronation roadtrip

packing for tomorrow

sewing progress

2 Heated Rivalry recs

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