"YOU CANT BUZZ IN NOT KNOWING THE CORRECT ANSWER THIS ISNT FUCKING UM ACTUALLY" Siobhan says, standing next to two um actually hosts

season 4 of leverage is so. some of the most MOST episodes of all time. there is an office episode where the crew is literally filmed like an episode of the office. there’s an episode where a sociopathic white rich boy tortures homeless people for some college thesis project. hardison gets knocked out by sophie. “no one throws hardison off the roof except me.” archie comes back. chaos also comes back. chaos gets tasered (fuckign finally). parker makes everyone cry because she yells about wanting to do the right thing. nate and sophie think they’re being subtle about their funny friends with benefits relationship but the shenanigans happen. “YOU RECRUITED MY WIFE?” “EX-WIFE” parker reveals she has successfully kept a normal friend and everyone is so proud of her. hardison ate eliot’s fuckign sandwich. nate “i love foreplay” ford.

First you procrastinate on the task because it is not a big enough deal to get done urgently. Then you procrastinate on the task because it has become such a big deal that doing it is overwhelming. You would think that this implies a middle point where it is just big enough of a deal to get done easily, however the inherent perversity of the universe's causal geometry prevents this

Had a 'fun' new experience today in the form of my first ever mammogram because I found a lump on my chest a few weeks ago, and when you find a lump, you get that shit checked out.

Ironically, the lump I went to get investigated turned out to be nothing, likely just a cyst that made its way to the surface, but they did find something else on the scan that requires me to do a follow-up ultrasound in six months. The doctor stressed that it is most likely a fibroid, but given my family history of breast cancer and general weird health fuckery, they're being vigilant and keeping an eye on it.

The mammogram itself was fine. The technician doing it kept complimenting me on the "pliable" nature of my breast tissue and how easy it was to smoosh me into the machine. I was like thanks, I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome; my body is basically made of only slightly more reinforced laffy taffy.

She said, "That explains that," and then proceeded to smush my tits into a pancake. Apparently, they were the most compliant tits she's worked with. I said thank you because what else can you do in that situation. And then she asked me if I wanted to know how much they weighed, and I said boy, do I?!

So she started reading off the results and was like, "17.7 lbs," and I was like, gosh, no wonder they feel so heavy, and then she kept talking and said, "And the other one weighs..."

And that's when I realized she didn't mean total.

She meant one boob was 17.7lbs.

So in case you've ever wanted to know, my right boob weighs 17.7 lbs, and my left one weighs 17.3 lbs, bringing the grand weight hanging off my chest to an even 35 lbs.

The tech was like "gosh! That's a lot for someone of your size!" and I was like "ya fucking think?!"

For a frame of reference, I weigh 136 lbs total. One-quarter of my weight is tits.

I am one-quarter titty.

And I'm telling that to the next doctor who suggests I lose weight.

Anyway. Remember to do regular breast exams, and don't be afraid of mammograms. Yes, they're checking for cancer, but they also tell you fun things like how much your chest weighs and whether or not your boobs are compliant.

Out to breakfast with Boyfriend (at the time), Best Friend, and Best Friend's Two Year Old Daughter. 2yo is standing up in the booth with her back to us, animatedly chatting with the woman in the next booth.

Our food arrives.

Boyfriend: "Ok, [2YO], time to sit down on your butt."

2YO: *turns around and gives him the coldest, most withering LOOK* "We're talking."

The two year-old is now a solid two and a half. Just now, he was sitting on the couch playing with his pretend flip phone and he frowned and said “for gods sake. My battery is empty.”

The other day at breakfast I asked him if he was going to eat any more of his oatmeal and he said “no, I think I’m just gonna move on with my life.”

my boss and i were both running late for work so i told him it was a race and i ended up beating him by an entire two minutes. when he walked in i pointed and said “you LOST. now you gotta do a loser’s jig” and he dld. he did the saddest most defeated little jig complete with a cartoon boohoo cry and everything

Europeans, I have some questions.

Do you know what ambrosia salad is?

If so, is the version you know of a) a normal salad or b) a "dessert" salad?

Do you know what Dirt Cake is?

If so, is that common knowledge in your region?

(What country/region do you live in, other context you wish to add, etc)

I'm working on the new Shivadh novel and I underestimated the comedic potential of Simon, a classically trained French chef who has been cooking for European nobility for thirty years, trying to set a menu for a graduation party with Noah, your average American teenaged garbage disposal, and Eddie, who is literally based on Guy Fieri. Reminds me of the bit in Infinite Jes where Michaelis mentions that Eddie and Gerald had him judge a debate about Hot Pockets and then confesses he doesn't actually know what they are.

(Context for the end of the snippet -- Hugo and Gwen are Simon's brother and sister-in-law, Claude is his young nephew.)

"Huh, okay, so are we doing like a salad theme?" 

"How do you mean?" Noah asked.

"Oh, just, you've got a potato salad and a pasta salad. I'd suggest a Jello salad for dessert but..." Eddie broke off at Alanna's horrified look. "That is what you will see on everyone's face," he said to Noah, pointing at Alanna. 

"Not so, I could do an aspic," Simon protested. "Sweet or savory, very traditional -- not this nonsense from American cookbooks from sixty years ago."

"American nonsense is kinda my brand," Noah pointed out. "Uh, I don't think we realized we were building a giant salad course but I am into that, actually. I'd like to discuss the Jello Salad," he said, and Eddie crowed delightedly while Alanna blanched, so Simon had to mediate a good-natured but extensive debate about gelatin in sweet dessert salads. 

It was an education; when he showed Hugo and Gwen what Americans thought ambrosia salad was, later, their horror was gratifying. It was a fitting prelude to his next exhibit, the Dirt Cake pudding cup, which made Hugo pretend to faint but -- even better -- fascinated little Claude so much that he insisted he wanted them instead of a cake for his next birthday. 

"He'll forget by the time the birthday arrives," Simon assured Hugo, who pretended to mop a sweaty brow. "And if he doesn't, I can elevate this. A light coffee mousse with chocolate biscuits -- drizzle with a sweet wine reduction -- jellied candy flavored with dragonfruit and blackcurrant."

"Can we put bones in the dirt?" Claude asked, already exploring his terrible American dessert options on his tablet. 

"Not human," Gwen said hurriedly. "That's a bridge too far for a birthday party, my darling," she told Claude. 

"Dinosaur bones?" Claude asked hopefully. Gwen and Hugo both looked at Simon. 

"Meringue, or marzipan," Simon pronounced. "Yes, that could be done. Well, my little gravedigger, we will see," he told Claude, tousling his hair.

I was inspired

make me choose            ↳ leverage OR teen wolf

For me the funniest thing to come out of the goncharov meme was not any of the fake scenes or the nyt articles about it or whatever but the fact that due to the fact that he'd found it funny when I told him about it I got my dad several books by ivan goncharov for christmas that year as a joke fully expecting him to not even touch them BUT to everyone's surprise he read every single one cover to cover and liked them so much that he read dostoevsky and then read tolstoy and then pushkin and then gogol and now barely reads anything that isn't nineteenth century russian literature and also has started watching academic talks about crime and punishment and will randomly bring up shit like the politics present in bulgakov's writing in at LEAST half of our conversations. all because of goncharov

The masculine urge to just dig a huge fucking hole in someone's backyard.

I went to a restaurant with a friend yesterday and upon entering we saw these splendid blueberry tarts under bell jars on the counter and we made jokey small talk with the waitress like oh, people will fight over these if there's not enough for everyone, it'll tear families apart, are you making more later? and she said no, I'm afraid that's our entire stock for today, but there are 18 slices, it should be plenty! It was a small village restaurant with only one menu du jour so there weren't any other dessert options but they don't usually get that many customers—but then a couple of large groups arrived and most people noticed the tarts like we did, and went ohh blueberry tart, it's been a while, I can't wait, and it became clear that when we'd get to the end of our meal there would be winners and losers in the blueberry tart rush

But later as we were about to order dessert I wasn't hungry anymore and I was like well that's too bad but someone else will be glad to get 'my' slice of tart—and my friend said yeah, me :) You should order it anyway, I'll eat both! At first I thought she was joking, but no. I said, there's not enough for everyone, you can't take two, and she said, we were going to order two slices, what difference does it make? and I was baffled that she couldn't see the ethical difference between two people eating one slice of tart each vs. one person eating two, when there's a limited quantity of tart. I felt like we were in a simplistic social justice metaphor it was so obvious, but there was no changing her mind. When I said "it's just... not nice" she said "okay" with a shrug, and what can you say to that. She added, you don't know any of these people and I was like, why are we reverting to tribal dynamics in a non-apocalyptic setting, how would you feel if we'd arrived a bit later and seen others ordering two desserts knowing you'd get zero? And she said, I would think that's their right, and I felt kind of amazed.

I pointed out that if she didn't think it was a wee bit wrong, she wouldn't ask me to order her second piece as if it was for me, and she said yeah maybe we don't need to do that, there's no law preventing me from ordering two desserts. What about Kant's categorical imperative Okay I guess you're not breaking any laws by taking more than your fair share of a thing other people also want, just failing a kindergarten-level morality test. I felt embarrassed for sounding like an annoying preachy rigid person so I dropped the issue, and as she ate her two slices she'd smile at me every time we overheard someone order coffee without dessert—like "See? There'll be enough, no one will be deprived of tart because of me!" as if that cancelled the fact that she didn't care in the first place. I guess it was one of these tiny issues that can still significantly alter the way you perceive a person. I tried to tell myself not to be so bothered about this small thing but I was! so bothered. And I felt like writing a letter to some agony aunt like "should I end a friendship over irreconcilable blueberry tart ethics"

A hummingbird thought a man’s orange hat was a flower [x]

Immediate Writer's Block

Had a comment on another post where I thought I'd probably need more space than the notes in which to respond, so:

constant-state-of-self-discovery Oh I get the envy I feel it right now how the fuck do you manage to write without impassable writers block after 5-9 sentences because I haven't fucking figured it out lol

I do have some advice on this!

I think most writers get blocked from time to time, it's normal and my general strategy is just to wait it out, but if you're frequently blocked after only writing a very little bit, I think the problem is one of two things: either you don't know what you want to achieve with the scene you're writing, or you don't know what should happen next within the scene to achieve that goal. If you frame "I'm blocked" as "I don't have an answer I need" then often you move from just sitting there, sweating and staring at a blank page, to thinking productively about how you're going to get where you're going. It's the difference between not knowing an answer and not knowing an answer but knowing where to look for it.

An invaluable piece of advice for this, which I think I picked up from someone who got it off a National Novel Writing Month messageboard, is "When in doubt, ninjas attack." It's not meant to be literal, you don't need to have ninjas or fight scenes just because you don't know what to do, but it helps to get the creativity flowing again. If you don't know what should happen next, or you know but you're having trouble actually writing the scene, it can be very helpful to induce a moment of uncertainty or surprise -- to have a metaphorical ninja attack. One time I did this literally -- the POV character was just on the road somewhere and I didn't know how to get them from a pastoral country road to their actual destination in an interesting way, so I had them get attacked by highway bandits and have to fight them off, which also allowed me to demonstrate that the character had significant unarmed combat skills. But it can also just be like, two characters who are having a boring conversation can be interrupted by a third person, even just a stranger asking for directions, or there can be, IDK, an explosion, or something goes missing, or etc.

Sometimes it also helps to leave it alone but keep it in your mind and go do something else -- listen to a podcast, take a walk, read a book, not because those things are distracting but because all our inputs eventually feed into our brain and come out as reactions. If you're thinking about your book while you're wandering around a park, something you see in the park might have an impact on it. If you've got YOUR story in mind while reading someone else's, you might be more inclined to look at what they're saying and see what you think of it, how it might play into your work.

And honestly, sometimes you just gotta go past it. I'm working on the next Shivadh novel right now and it opens basically with Simon the chef getting into a spat with his love-interest-to-be over some cheese. He want the cheese, she won't sell him the cheese, so they get off to a very contentious start. But I suck at writing conflict especially when it's basically "A character I like is being pompous and another character I want people to find likable is being stubborn and somewhat unpleasant". I've been stalled on it for a while. But I know where the scene ends up, like I do know what the goal is, so I just...skipped it and went on to writing a scene I like better, where they meet a second time and actually discover each others' identity and that they're about to be forced into the grownup equivalent of a school project. Once I've gotten dug deeper into the story I'll come back and write it, and by then I'll have the benefit of knowing the love interest a bit better.

So yeah -- I think a lot of breaking a writer's block, especially when you don't need rest but are just stumped about what to do, is to twist and look at it from another angle. It's not that you don't know what to write, or don't want to write what you know you have to -- it's that you don't have the correct answer to a question, or you need to leave that part alone to ferment and come back to it later. At least, for me.