double poem day

Feb. 23rd, 2026 05:11 pm
ursula: bear eating salmon (Default)
[personal profile] ursula
Two of my poems were published today! They're both science-and-technology poems about immigration in the US in the past year. Secondary Filters is up at Strange Horizons, and an audio version of Leaning on the melting point is on the PoetTreeTown Soundcloud.

Joys of Homeownership

Feb. 20th, 2026 07:28 pm
hrj: (Default)
[personal profile] hrj
On the positive side, it all got fixed within a few hours.

I've been commenting lately that I felt like my home repair budget was fairly safe because I'd replaced every significant appliance in the house at some point since I acquired the house. (Fifteen years ago. 15! Can you believe it?)

Well, I forgot about the garage door opener. But it didn't forget about me.

I'd just gotten my bike out this morning, then when I went to close the garage door behind me, it made a lot of sad noises and declined to close. Examination showed that several of the side-rollers had jumped out of their tracks. (I'd known that one was out of the track for some time, but I couldn't man-handle it back in and it didn't seem to be causing problems.)

So. This calls for professional help. But first it called for securing the critical garage contents because the door was stuck open and I live on a well-traveled street. That having been done, I went on Yelp, located a relatively local garage door repair company, and got scheduled for a window within a couple hours. OK, good sign.

I solved my anxiety about the lack of door closure by doing yard work in the front yard until the repair guy arrived.

In addition to the roller misalignment (which is now happening on both sides of the door, thanks to my efforts to get it to fail closed) the cables (which evidently get winched up by a heavy-duty spring) are tangled on the spindle rather than being neatly wound on their designated place. So the immediate problem could be solved with brute force: prying the roller track open enough to force the roller back in; disconnecting the cables and rewinding in the correct place. That was going to be about $500 labor. Ok.

But, he says, look: these cables are corroded, and one of the heavy-duty springs is rusty. Furthermore, you really should use rollers with longer shanks, because these have a risk of popping off their sockets on the door. (I'm sure my description is not helping anyone visualize this.) So, he says, I'm going to recommend you replace pretty much all the door-lifting hardware. That's going to be a couple thousand.

I wince, but I can see the truth of everything he's saying. So he goes to work on all that and gets it all back in working order. And then he says, "So, you don't have to do this, and I don't get any commission or anything if you do, but the motor on your door opener is 20 years old, it isn't really as powerful as it should be for how much you use it, and it's probably going to fail within the next couple years.

So that was a couple more thousand. But now I have a fancy garage door opener that talks to my iPhone and includes a security camera. And maybe--just maybe--now I really have replaced the last appliance that came with the house when I bought it. Unless I've forgotten something else.

That was weird

Feb. 20th, 2026 06:06 am
carrot_khan: (Dream)
[personal profile] carrot_khan
 There was a lot going on, but the focus of the dream - or the last part that I remember better than the rest - was that someone I had three boobs.  I think by the end I had five going on, but we'll just talk about my sudden discovery of three.  I guess I had noticed in the mirror that one was bigger than the other - which happens - but upon examination, I had a third one just tucked under.  This sent me into something of an alarming spin because how do you just get a third one without noticing?  And I was 100% certain I hadn't been born with three.  I looked through photo albums of when I was a baby - looking for those just-in-a-diaper pics to make sure "Yep, only two nips".

So clearly an additional boob had to grow later and as I cuddled an infant Edward, I contemplated that maybe pregnancy hormones would make the body go total wackadoddle and sprout a third.  But you'd think I'd notice at some point, right? 

At some point in the dream I showed mom and she's like "Huh, well." and she knew what the only answer was and how I was going to pay for it.  At my crestfallen demeanor she's like "OH, I'll help, but" which only made it a little better and then she started talking about some diagnosis she had and that it didn't come up until later in life and that spun me talking the fact that maybe the reason I have short little T-rex arms and Corgi legs is because of Ehlers Danlos syndrome.  The dream spun out of existance at that point.

I'm pretty sure my dream self brougth up EDS only because I had been reading about it the other day.

****

As an extra suddenly remembered - I dreamed I flew a few days ago.  Like Peter Pan type of flying.  I haven't dreamed that in a long long time.  Someone - Freud probably - states that flying represents sex and when you start having it in real life, you don't dream of flying any more.  Ha ha, Freud, take that.  Weirdo.  The dream is half-remembered, but it was nice to fly again.

More tax nattering

Feb. 15th, 2026 12:41 pm
hrj: (Default)
[personal profile] hrj
Finished doing the paper draft of my taxes and have enough confidence that I understand all the new (retirement-related) elements to be ready to go online and fill in the forms. Also did a very rough draft of my expected 2026 federal taxes (based on 2025 forms and projected numbers) and I don't see a need to adjust my current withholding at this point. Of course, the rough draft doesn't include the unknown amounts I'll be getting from Bayer (pro-rated bonus from last year and what's likely to be a very minimal long-term-incentive program bonus), which will only apply for 2026. So 2027 will actually be the first year when I'm working entirely on retirement numbers. (As usual, I'm using spreadsheets as my self-soothing mechanism and nattering on about the results.)

Am I Too Prickly?

Feb. 14th, 2026 10:48 am
hrj: (Default)
[personal profile] hrj
I think people who follow me on social media (especially here and fb) are aware of my habit of explicitly noting when I don't want "helpful" commentary/suggestions/feedback on something I"m describing--and, conversely, explicitly noting when I'm seeking input. But sometimes I worry that people take that as a signal that I don't want interaction at all. (Why in the world would I post things about my life if I didn't want any interaction?)

I'd love to have more actual conversations on social media. Back and forth, discussions of topics of mutual interest. But it feels like so few people stop to ask themselves, "Am I phrasing my participation in this conversation in a way that implies the original poster is ignorant or incompetent? Is there a way I could rephrase that makes it clear that I'm providing additional information for other readers, rather than implying this is something the original poster doesn't know? Or that I'm amplifying and agreeing with the post, rather than contradicting it or poking holes in it?"

Here's a generic example.

OP: [Interesting Fact]
Commenter: [Subsidiary Information that could be assumed to be known by anyone who already knows Interesting Fact]

Compare to:
OP: [Interesting Fact]
Commenter: What I love about that [Interesting Fact] is [Subsidiary Information].

The first implies the OP doesn't know the fact. The second shows solidarity by assuming the OP knows the fact and the commenter is sharing their love for it.

Now, one could object that people differ in their ability to communicate in nuanced fashions and some people just aren't good at analyzing on the fly how their comments might be taken. But from the other side, people differ in their ability to assume good will in the face of past experience. A mirror-world version of "I'm not good at reading social cues" is "I'm working very hard to read social cues and the false positives are abundant." Telepathy still hasn't been invented.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm whining about this (given that the inciting interaction was incredibly trivial).

Drumroll please

Feb. 12th, 2026 10:30 pm
hrj: (Default)
[personal profile] hrj
I think I now have all the data and documents and forms assembled to do my transition-to-retirement-year tax returns. Today's task was to turn last year's financial spreadsheet into my usual yearly summary, then put the relevant data from it and all the various W2s and 1099s and whatnot into my tax data template (which needed to be updated for several new types of documents and data).

Because of how my brain works best, I'm going to go to the length of printing out paper copies of the forms to noodle on, even though I'll be filing online. And I'll be reading through the pdfs of the instruction booklets and highlighting everything that looks relevant. But on my first skim through, I think this is going to be easier than I feared. The schedule C stuff (writing business) is the same as always. And although the worksheet to calculate how much of my social security income is taxable is convoluted, the instructions walk you through it step by step.

One new wrinkle is that they now have a separate "1040-senior" form, evidently to simplify the instructions for the enhanced standard deduction for seniors (which get convoluted if you're married filing jointly but only one of you is a senior). I'll compare it point by point with the standard 1040 to make sure it doesn't do anything else bizarre.

And despite the rather chaotic nature of how my withholding is set up for the various retirement incomes, I think it's still pretty close to the right amount. Once I have this year's returns done, I can probably do a mock return for next year and see what adjustments I should make on the withholding.

Collections suddenly remembered

Feb. 12th, 2026 09:28 am
carrot_khan: (Dream)
[personal profile] carrot_khan
 Almost a week ago I dreamed Xander and I was talking.  That was a strange occurance - us talking and Xander being there.  Daylight, also a rare occurance. I haven't dreamed Xander since he was a baby and I was going through the horrors post-partum.  Anyway - he was talking to me as if I was a friend and not a parent.  He asked me something terrible innapropriate and rather than be appalled, my Dream Self was like "Maybe, wait until everyone leaves" because I guess we were in a crowd.  I don't know what brought that on.

A few days after that I dreamed of being in a group of girls, like one of the girls was my friend and she brought me along with her other group of friends.  I needed to be on good behavior, so as not to get my friend in trouble for bringing trouble, and it was clear that the group was run by a Mean Girl.  No matter what joke I said, what conversational bit I dropped in, what story I told, Mean Girl would get that look on her face like she stepped in something gross and just shut down anything I did.  I recognized it for what it was, that for some reason I was now the scape goat of the group and she was going to mold public opinion against me.  I didn't get a chance to leave or ask the Mean Girl WTF, but it was clear I needed to ditch this group of people and peace out.

Two days ago I dreamed of Xander again, and again we were in a crowd - but they were sitting rather than standing.  I guess it was some sort of graduation ceremony?  A party?  Anyway, he had a pen and paper and crouching down near people and they were giving him....poems? Advice?  For some reason the theme was 1920 because Gary Oldman (sitting towards the back and dressed in the manner of that run way show he and a bunch of other actors did) said "1920s?  Black and white, Xander.  Black and white."  Xander just looked at me like "rly?" and put his pen/paper down.  I indicated that he should write it down, that it was something worth keeping.  It was probably insightful advice coming from Oldman, you just had to dwell on it.  Xander clearly thought it dumb.

The other night I dreamed Epona wanted me to be her witness wingman to something going down.  She had asked for mediation about something and when we got there, she didn't say a single thing.  Just stoned face the entire time.  I'm not even sure who was mediating, but as the blathering went on from the other group of women, it was clear they were just digging themselves holes as Mean Girls and totally in the wrong.  Eventually we just left because our presence wasn't necessary for resolution to the situation.  As we got outside (in the daylight, which is notable) I was like "What the hell was that all about?!" and she was about to explain it to me, when I woke up.

***

So I emailed Epona like "Ha ha, we're hunting down mean ass bitches in the Dreamtime!" and then she revealed the mean ass bitch she's dealing with now.

I wish if I was Dreaming True again, I could see the end of fascims, my next super novel, the existance of aliens, or the goddamn lotto numbers.

what elegant stars

Feb. 10th, 2026 04:33 pm
ursula: bear eating salmon (Default)
[personal profile] ursula
I'm writing a story for What Elegant Stars, an anthology of stories about space opera and fashion (or textiles!) that's Kickstarting right now.

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