had a really handy info session about MFAs today in which I asked if the profs knew of many past students currently studying in the states and they were like "it's going ok for some" and then to me, after, were like, "do not go there" :')

I finished a fanfiction I first published in 2020 yesterday. 70-something thousand words. I forget sometimes I've written like 300k+ of just zelda fanfic.

Anywayyy I'm glad it's done and it's cool to see how much better my writing is since that first chapter came out!

forever thinking of the elif batuman n+1 essay where she digs into two best american short stories collections and literally has to say, in the essay, that the purpose of the short story form is to tell a short story—"this sounds trivial, but isn’t"

and by disagreeing i mean, finding a narrator “inaccurate” because it’s not what you, personally, would feel/think/do (outside ofc of anything poorly written/unbelievable).

i don’t really think this is unhinged but the quote posts make me feel it might be for some!

too many people read first person as if the “I” is them thinking to themselves, and not the voice of a character telling a story (like how a friend would tell you about their day).

if you find yourself “disagreeing” with a 1st person narrator, you are the one self-inserting, not the author.

An apple pie sitting on a counter with four vent lines in the top and a slightly wonky crust.

I made my first-ever pie yesterday, crust and all, with apples from the garden. and it was good!! I overworked the crust a bit but have notes for next time. like this friday for harvest party. 🍏

I’m honestly so livid that after a MONTH of off-gassing this thing still gives me a sore throat and smells horrid. dunno how long it’ll take the office to air out now but hopefully not long cause god I miss my desk!

our incredibly stinky memory foam mattress is being picked up for return today and, allowed back in the office finally, Greta promptly carried out a toy mouse that been unjustly trapped in there for months

A small copper tabby cat and a large black cat sit in the sun on a coir mat in front of a sliding door.

Two friends smiling for a selfie in a brick-lined narrow alleyway.

Mallards in a pond under a grey sky, some of them with their butts in the air as they dive for whatever it is Mallards eat.

Gnarly old oak trees lining a leaf strewn path through a cemetery.

some pics from recently. if you look carefully you can see the ghost of a man my friend used an app to delete in the background of our selfie

I hadn’t seen Vanja in like 3 years so it was nice to catch up with a friend I’ve had since grade 5!!

and to be clear she is anti-AI and so am I, I don’t think AI are people or should be treated as people, and if that changed the tech industry as a whole would contradict itself. not that exploiting workers has ever been new but do the robots have wages and lunch breaks? workers rights?

chatted w a friend this morning who has written a paper on robotics ethics and she had a great point on the bluesky mods AI approach in that AI usage and development is colonial in nature, and they really can’t say it’s bigotry to hate AI when they don’t treat AI as a person in any other way.

really enjoying hades 2!! Beat Chronos last night for the first time using the flames surprisingly?? the aspect of eos is very Cardcaptor Sakura aesthetic and I love it

also really enjoying the axe though which I didn’t expect since I usually love zoomy weapons, but it’s just so satisfying

This FBI Special Agent wants you to sacrifice yourself so that your brutal treatment will engender sympathy and melt the hearts of those who brutalise you.

This FBI Special Agent does not want you to understand that this is not what worked in India and instead wants you to watch a Hollywood movie

a flow-chart with 2 islands. "Do I need AI?" that flows into a final island saying "No"

countless peach-rusty orange chrysanthemum blossoms with yellow button middles under a backdrop of more flowers and greenery.

Rose bushes in early fall, leaves just starting to turn red, blossoms just starting to fail. A blurry background of dark green coniferous trees under a grey sky.

Apples on a tree pruned meticulously to stay against the white wall it stands beside. More are visible in the background stretching into the distance.

Purple clover flowers, close up. On one is a large yellow and black bumblebee.

pics from the last few days of garden visits

the bluesky mods are perfect foils apparently

how can one of them be saying “if you swapped these words you’d be saying something bigoted”

while the other references the waffles/pancakes tweet

do you see yourselves @hailey.at @jay.bsky.team ? genuinely wondering

Thanks!!

one of the Anticipations causing me background stress finally resolved today.

i got another poetry scholarship. this one wasn’t just “good job at being good at school” (grateful as i am for that too) but based on a submission of work.

i don’t have to empty my savings for next semester anymore!!

A large box and a tote bag completely full with green, slightly red apples, sitting on a gravel path.

climbed a chain link fence today for the first time in forever, and the bounty was worth it.

(there was no stealing involved - just a branch of the garden’s apple tree that sits over a fence)

seeing apple pie as something to add to this weekend’s plans :)

exercising extreme willpower to not join the two cats on the bed and Go To Class instead

if i put this in a rice cooker for thirty days will it ferment and become black garlic aioli scented instead

Nice titmouse. Tufted?

i went hunting for that David Whyte poem because he showed up on my instagram feed in a very timely reel explaining:

“how do you know you’re on the right path? because the path disappears.”

and it’s exactly the sort of cold comfort i need for the remainder of this last uni year.

"Now is the path
of leaving the path."

• David Whyte •

WALLACE STEVENS In Memoriam, 1879-1979 On an Ordinary Evening by David Ignatow I am back to walking alone through silent streets lit by colorful windows of the homes of responsible men and women, and I refuse responsibility. I am weeping without tears, with hands jammed into pockets under trees smelling of leaves and grass of the gardens -- smelling the silence of stolidity and peace and wanting no peace until it is written in my poems.

Wallace Stevens was born on this day in 1879. This uncollected poem by David Ignatow was written to commemorate his centenary.

the number of quote posts of this by people who have clearly not watched the video is astounding

Im still halfway through my coffee but something something media literacy and the prevalence of AI going hand-in-hand

follow through for fuck’s sake! it’s a dictionary!

started Hades 2 last night and i’m already really enjoying it! got to the second boss and promptly died but it’s a good time

@amalelmohtar.com got me into Clues by Sam and I passed it on to a couple friends; one of those, "I cannot suffer alone/let me, on occasion, feel smarter than someone else" situations

and we're having fun, but at what cost!!

30+ truly is a lesson in looking after your body but ALSO a lesson in how hard that is in a world full of mattresses that need fucking off-gassing.

the 4” rock hard slab of a mattress we had in greece put terry and i right the fuck out so at least a firm coil would probs be just fine

the room being my office, which I haven’t been able to use now for a month since it’s storing this stinky mattress until the company comes and picks it up.

probs gonna go w the super firm coil one or bite the bullet and save some more for organic latex.