cpolk | Hello!

I'm glad to have an excuse to come back to this style of online socializing.

I'm going to have a look around and figure out how I want to tweak various access filters, but for now I'm going to keep it simple and get more complicated later.

But for now, hello! I'm glad you are here! I hope to get up to nonsense very soon.

I used to write a lot of longer posts on this style of platform back in the day. I'm not sure how often I will do that now.

I'm aiming to be interesting, if brief, and to drop in here pretty regularly.

If you would like to drop a comment to say hello, please do! and look around at any other commenters you see and say hello to them too.
if you don't know what to say, I have a few things you could tell me:

what is a subject of interest you would like to start learning more about?
what music have you had on repeat lately?
if you cook, what's something you're cooking now that the seasons are shifted?
what do you feel like reading, described with tropes and vibes?
what is the most fascinating activity you've been doing lately?
what is your favorite hot beverage recipe of the moment?
what are you making/building/creating/designing right now?

what is something you'd like to ask other commenters?

I have a question for those of you who have been on DW more regularly: are there communities you are fond of that could be of interest? my tastes are wide ranging so that could be anything, honestly.

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: home
Current Music: Florence and the Machine - King

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Posted by

yhlee

Hello!! Good to see you. :)

- what is a subject of interest you would like to start learning more about?

Coding in Unity/C#, for Reasons.

- what music have you had on repeat lately?

I-DLE's album I Love (it's kpop, Ataraxia's Llyr (folk??).

- what do you feel like reading, described with tropes and vibes?

I want to read something that is NOT sf/f that will completely rip my heart out. Maybe horror, if I can find something that isn't too gory/gross.

- what is the most fascinating activity you've been doing lately?

For Reasons, I am exploring 2D animation. Because I have
stupid hobbies. :p

- what are you making/building/creating/designing right now?

Relearning digital art by going back to basics (basically, how much can I do with Hard Brush and Soft Brush now that I know some fundamentals). Working on the second book in a YA mecha space opera trilogy. I'd like to do some more orchestral composition but my music rig died and I'm waiting for my husband to build the replacement computer. :p

- what is something you'd like to ask other commenters?

Is anyone else studying a foreign-to-you language? What are your favorite resources for it? I'm working on Korean and German for the moment, but I always love hearing about language resources!

Posted by

cpolk

I have revived my duolingo habit, this time to learn French. I think it's going better because mr. cee speaks french, so I can ask him how to pronounce things and why this rule makes sense. and I learned enough that when I was a few minutes away from landing in Montreal international, I had cobbled together enough of my lessons so I could say

je desolee, je parles pas Français. J'etudiant français avec Duolingo; je suis un débutante.

which is actually a HECK of a lot more fluent than I imagined! I certainly couldn't figure out on the fly how to say that in Finnish...

unfortunately, not a single person spoke French anywhere in the airport while I was racing to make my connection to Newark.

Posted by

yhlee

Yay! I've been using Duolingo to drill German - it has limitations but it's good for just getting in sound/pronunciation and learning vocabulary. Unfortunately, my husband is TERRIBLE at languages so I don't really have anyone to practice conversational skills with. XD I don't have any expectation of fluency, just improving my reading/writing skills.

I had some French in high school, so, uh, here goes:

Bonjour! Je parle seulement un petit peu de français! J'aime beaucoup la belle langue. J'aime aussi les livres!

Posted by

ravenna_c_tan

I picked up studying Japanese from the pandemic bingo card and have kept it up for almost two years now! I use Duolingo for daily practice and I've been taking an online weekly class through the Boston Japanese Language School.

What I really really want is a, like, beginners conversation practice Zoom room of some kind. But I haven't really found that. And even the "conversation" class I've taken is more structured "practice" than actual off=the-cuff making us talk.

Posted by

cpolk

Yes this! like just the tiny chance I have to practice the french I do know has helped a lot - I need to attempt more conversations in french too.

Posted by

lcohen

good to see you posting!

what is a subject of interest you would like to start learning more about?

i think all my new learning energy is going to try to figure out the new financial system we are converting to at the beginning of the next fiscal year :( .

what music have you had on repeat lately?

i'm a shapenote singer and i've been returning and returning to the last song i led at a singing a couple of weeks ago, "agatite" by judy hauff.

what do you feel like reading, described with tropes and vibes?

i've been reading a lot of queer romances--there was a 10 best of list somewhere that was a leaping off point to try a bunch of new authors--usually i read queer historical romances but most of these are contemporary--some work, some don't. the most frustrating one was where there was a bisexual female main character and she was paired with a male main character so that aside from a reference to a female ex, the book was indistinguishable from a not-queer romance--what that book was doing on a list of best-of queer romances is anyone's guess.

what is the most fascinating activity you've been doing lately?

i've been trying role-playing games which is relatively new for me but unlikely to be fascinating to most people!

what are you making/building/creating/designing right now

nothing, and i'm not cooking either. i got COVID and then long COVID and i have the stamina of a wet turnip.

Posted by

cpolk

which roleplaying games, though? and what's your feeling on where they shine?

Posted by

lcohen

i had a few false starts, so to speak. i think for me, the group is more important than the world, though even a group of people i really liked couldn't save Paranoia for me--the pandemic started and i simply wasn't in the mood for a game where the point was to stab your companions in the back.

the one i'm active in right now is a star trek rpg--funny for me because i know so little about star trek, overall (saw TOS in reruns, one season of DS9, and the first 5 movies--it's a wonder they let me into the group!). but it's a great group of people and i have a nifty character (a napean so an empath--just got promoted to chief medical officer) and lots of things you can do to get extra dice when you're rolling for something, to increase your chances of some sort of success. i think the way we all work together to make the federation an ethical place to work....until we need to take over a slaver's ship makes it fun for all of us.

meanwhile another friend wants to start a game in a world that is about researching magic spells rather than going off and adventuring and he sent me the documentation and i'm reading and on page 4 or so, there's all this stuff about ways to botch a spell, and i am intrigued! so i hope that happens and how weird if i go from almost no experience to having two long-running games!

Posted by

ravenna_c_tan

Oooh, where is this list of queer romances and can you share it? I have a stack of books I haven't read, but since when has that stopped me from looking at more?

Posted by

cpolk

since the twelfth of never!

Posted by

lcohen

this was the list i came across:

https://ew.com/books/10-best-lgbtq-romance-novels-of-the-last-five-years/

i've read 7 of the 10, so far--relying on the library to get me things. wide range of reactions--some i went in search of more titles by the author, others, not so much. only author i'd read before was cat sebastian, whose books i absolutely love, so if you're wondering where my taste tends, now you know :) . but it's been fun to try new authors and see what i think.

Posted by

ravenna_c_tan

Oh, I have read some of the ones on this list! Interestingly, 3 of them were also books being promoted this summer at Bookstore Romance Day and their authors were all in the queer romance panel (via Zoom) that I moderated for the Harvard Bookstore in August. So I wonder if some of them were included because those were the "hot" books being touted by Avon and other houses' publicists...

Posted by

lcohen

well of course now i want to know which ones you read and whether you liked them. i accidentally started re-reading Unmasking by the Marquess after responding to you, because of course i did.

Posted by

ravenna_c_tan

My fave of the bunch was Red, White, and Royal Blue, which I read while Trump was still in office and really it was the fantasy book about US government I didn't know I needed. And how wild that it came right before all the Harry and Megan stuff blew up, as well? They're making it into a movie now! Can't wait

Posted by

naraht

Hello! Great to see people coming back to Dreamwidth.

The most interesting activity I've been doing recently is chatting with my fellow Viable Paradise participants and trying to absorb the experience. I think it's going to take a while, even after I get over the jet lag and I finish incorporating all the feedback from crit sessions. :)

On the question of communities, I don't really feel like they've ever properly taken here. Very little of my circle ends up being community posts, apart from

yuletide and the like.

meta_warehouse is not a bad place but it's nothing like Metafandom was back in its LJ heyday.

Edited on 2022-10-27 08:36 pm (UTC)

Posted by

cpolk

VP was pretty damn interesting, I gotta say. It was really nice to be there, though I was a bit reclusive.

I'm going to check out meta_warehouse. it's too bad that communities aren't super active here! I liked write_this_fanfic, I remember...

Posted by

naraht

Well, I enjoyed chatting with you and Bear at meals! I'm just sad that I missed the wild turkeys.

(And FWIW I'm happy to PM you with my actual name, if you want to know. This is a pseudonymous space for me but I'm aware that leads to a social asymmetry.)

Posted by

cpolk

oh yes, I believe my inbox is open!

Posted by

kore

HAY HAY HAY GURL HAY

....right now a migraine is trying to eat me so I'll have to write anything of substance later. But it's so good to see you here!

Posted by

cpolk

HAY HAY GURL!

don't let the migraine eat you! rest and come back.

Posted by

hobbitbabe

hi there!

Edmontonian here, engineer by day, theatre/creator by night, dilettante whenever.

what is a subject of interest you would like to start learning more about?
Dunno!

what music have you had on repeat lately?
Haven't really been listening to music - sometimes I want silence I can control.

if you cook, what's something you're cooking now that the seasons are shifted?
Turnips (what Americans call rutabagas). Honey-roasted carrots. Frittata.

what do you feel like reading, described with tropes and vibes?
I want to read fiction where the main character attends a school or learns the rules of magic or struggles with the details of running a business or a starship. Successfully. Where queerness exists and is not punished. And where families are complicated. Come to think of it, I'd love to read more people's lives like that on dreamwidth.

what is the most fascinating activity you've been doing lately?
Ushering a site-specific roving-theatre piece based on creepy local history.

what is your favorite hot beverage recipe of the moment?
Actually, just that powdered stuff that turns into a relative of cider.

what are you making/building/creating/designing right now?
Trying to figure out an entry for a 54-word playwriting competition.

what is something you'd like to ask other commenters?
What could I do with four large onions?

Posted by

cpolk

a roving theatre piece based on site specific creepy local history-- fuck me, i have to roll a saving throw against yelling, "honey, start the car."

and what could you do with four large onions?

caramelize them.

you can do it the traditional way using a big lidded skillet (or a dutch oven, if you want to make soup, see below) on the lowest heat you can manage with some fat (butter is traditional, but avocado oil would be fine) and that would probably take 45 minutes to and hour, getting up to move the onions around every 5 minutes or so--they will reduce and reduce and turn golden then tan then brown...you can splash a bit of balsamic vinegar or Worcestershire sauce (a bitty bit!) in them, i hear. Tamari could work too, maybe Maggi. then you can take your pick--

if you eat soup, and you did this in a bigger pot, you can pull the onions out of the pan and splash in a little beef stock or mushroom stock or cooking/leftover wine and use the liquid to scrape up the cooked bits in the bottom of the pan, then return the onions, and cover with more stock, say at twice the volume of your onions, cover, and leave it to simmer for a while. i feel like this soup needs salt. if your stock is salted, that's probably okay, taste it after 20 minutes and see.

if you have oven safe dishes that will broil and you feel comfortable with that, go for it, but honestly I toast bread, cut it into points, and set aside. I pour piping hot soup into bowls, add finely shredded gruyere cheese to the broth - the fine shred and the very hot broth melts the cheese, and then after a few minutes to let it settle out a bit, i put the toast points on top.

French onion soup. sorry about the farts.

if you're not a soup person, these caramelized onions are nice to add wherever you want a bit more savory flavor in a dish. you can put them in ice cube trays, freeze them (maybe with a bit of olive oil?), and then pop them in a ziploc. you can toss them straight into a hot pan, it's fine.

Posted by

lcohen

so you're saying i have the stamina of a wet rutabaga? *hides*

Posted by

ravenna_c_tan

Oh gosh, I've forgotten how to do social media where you have to reply instead of just hitting "like". I'm thinking about dipping my toe back in over here as well (and staying off twitter? but I still love twitter... sorta).

what is a subject of interest you would like to start learning more about?
-- I just attended a lecture on making mead, and now I want to know a lot more (not sure I'm going to actually try making it, but maybe...)

what music have you had on repeat lately?
-- I've fallen headlong into the TwoSet Violin fandom, so a lot of classical music has been on repeat. Just got Hilary Hahn's new album, Eclipse.

if you cook, what's something you're cooking now that the seasons are shifted?
-- Now that the weather is cold it's time to bake lots of banana bread and roast lots of chicken with root vegetables under it.

what do you feel like reading, described with tropes and vibes?
-- fucked up fuck-up fucks things up... but in just the right way

what is the most fascinating activity you've been doing lately?
-- I just started teaching myself the classical guitar a few months ago. There is so much to know! And I'm cobbling together my own lessons via youtube videos and advice from online friends.

what is your favorite hot beverage recipe of the moment?
-- I love a bourbon, honey, tea, and lemon hot toddy. With some orange peel and a dash of Gran Marnier or a ginger liqueur maybe.

what are you making/building/creating/designing right now?
-- Does rearranging my office count?

Posted by

cpolk

Rearranging your office definitely counts! Are you adding new furniture? taking any away? changing the color scheme? what are you doing?

Posted by

ravenna_c_tan

Two things prompted the office reorganization (besides the pandemic urge to rearrange things in the house...): the renovation of some other areas of the house that will result in closet/storage space in the basement so some of the stuff in my office can get moved down there soon, and that Riverdale Ave Books took over Circlet Press, so I no longer needed to keep all the Circlet paperwork in my office, and I also didn't need to keep enough desks and chairs for 3-4 people to work at the same time in here anymore. Oh and also I wanted to make one corner into a Zoom background spot for doing online conferences (and taking my online Japanese class).

So that all meant sifting a lot of stuff, sending boxes of paperwork etc to New York, and then donating a bunch of the stuff I unearthed to various libraries, like all the queer book catalogs and magazines I had from the 90s from Firebrand Books and CLeis Press and such, as well as all the programming notes and materials from when I worked on the old OutWrite conference... all that went to a queer history collection. My whole shelf of science fiction convention program books went to an academic library specializing in them and which had mostly southern conventions: I filled them in with tons of northeastern US cons and Worldcons. Etc, etc.

Now that a bunch of that is out, next step is rearrange the furniture a bit and get some more baskets and bins for the shelfs of Officey Stuff that I still want to keep.... Eventually the calligraphy desk will be restored to usefulness as something other than a horizontal surface to pile Other Stuff on, and I'll figure out where and how to mount the cool art piece I picked up at Worldcon.

Posted by

cpolk

that sounds like a lot of work but i am really glad that you're getting this stuff to libraries too. I found out that stuff i wanted from IKEA is back in stock, so I can maybe get the doors on my pax wardrobes that are acting a bit like a storage room in this apartment. I'm hoping I can get things put away so I can get at my fiber stash more easily, and maybe have a chance to do some sewing!

Posted by

ravenna_c_tan

It's funny, I started doing more small sewing things during the pandemic. So not sewing whole new pieces of clothing or whatever, but making alterations on things that I'd been thinking about doing forever but hadn't gotten around to. All of a sudden I was like DO THE THING, so I did stuff like shortening the sleeves on a shirt. I got a sweatshirt in the mail today and am like, oooh, what would make this perfect would be thumb holes in the sleeves... so tomorrow maybe I'll make those! These like 10-15 minute projects, I'm all about those.

$umadoshi: (fractal 01 (enriana from obsessiveicons))$

Posted by

umadoshi

Hi! *^^* My brain is complete mush from work, but it's good to see you here!

Posted by

cpolk

Rest and unmush!

Posted by

mrissa

Hello hello hello today I am making wild rice pudding with dried cherries and revising my novella. Which is simultaneously not that much and a lot.

Posted by

cpolk

it really is exactly not that much and a lot

I'm going to see if this storyworld will give me any more bits

Posted by

green

Hi. I cook pumpkin bread year round because I love it so much. as long as I can get my hands on canned pumpkin (or have some leftover from fall), I am golden. Favorite recipe has to be the Harvest Apple Pumpkin Bread from Libby's site.

Hot beverage is always coffee. Though occasionally I will tip a bit of milk in Chai.

Right now I'm writing constantly, or thinking of what I should be writing, and that is most of what takes up my mind.

My favorite community here is

getyourwordsout, though you can't join until December. It's year round but that's when you make the pledges. (word count or habit writing)

Posted by

cpolk

I always hear about getyourwords out and then I chicken out and don't sign up, alas!

I really like it when I'm deep in the mental space of a story so it's always front of mind. It's nice to sink into it that far and need to work on it, as long as my anxiety about the work isn't rising too high...

Posted by

green

There are absolutely no consequences if you don't reach your pledge (which is good, because for the first year I'm not getting there) but the posts and discord are worth signing up for, I think. I'm socially inept and frequently anxious. But the comm has really helped me reach goals for sure.