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Turn your backs to the cold wind
What is going on is that I am in a spectacularly bad way, physically, even for me, and the doctor to whom I would normally have taken my problems is out of the office for another week yet and I am not having a great deal of success with their covering team; hence I have not been much present lately and spent the whole of last night lying on a couch, re-reading assorted Dick Francis and James Clavell's King Rat (1962) for the first time in decades. On the other hand, my mother has hatched all nine of her monarchs successfully and the next round of caterpillars is already rippling through the milkweed. The youngest of this set must be Random by age and coloration, but also because it remained inside its chrysalis until everyone who had been awaiting its entrance with bated breath was out of the room for a minute and then modestly slipped out and began to dry its wings blamelessly in the sun. I have also been reading Jen Manion's Female Husbands: A Trans History (2021) and it's great. Before this afternoon, I had never heard of the hibakujumoku, the A-bombed trees.
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It figures that a gingko would be among the survivors. "That measly one megaton? My kind survives asteroid strikes, bitches!"
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Thank you. It's not that I don't think of things! I have just very much not been around except in the three-dimensional sense.
I'm glad for the news about the monarchs, though. I took a 1-minute-plus video of one in my yard, drinking clover nectar. They're lovely to watch.
Nice! We technically have a video of me with one of the monarchs, although it will be a little complicated to get off my mother's phone. I love how their wings moving slowly look like respiration.
It figures that a gingko would be among the survivors. "That measly one megaton? My kind survives asteroid strikes, bitches!"
"Ginkgo from the Permian to the Anthropocene" sounds like the title of something I would definitely read or watch.
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I initially interpreted that as a Gingko from the Permian addressing the Anthropocene era at large, and it also sounds like a poem you would write!
I'm very sorry about your health. I hope you have much better health luck soon.
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That's a really good interpretation! Now it also sounds like jewelry by
I'm very sorry about your health. I hope you have much better health luck soon.
Thank you.
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You're welcome.
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*hugs*
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Thank you.
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(I loved King Rat even though the first time I read it I was probably far too young to understand or appreciate it.)
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Thank you!
(I loved King Rat even though the first time I read it I was probably far too young to understand or appreciate it.)
I read it for the first time in early high school, which probably means the same. Curiously, I had remembered the trans character, forgotten that she has a tragic ending; my mother and I agree that she should have a better one.
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I love that they just keep coming. My mother hoped when she let the milkweed flourish, but it wasn't guaranteed.
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Thank you; he was. Both because I read a lot of him when younger and because so many of his protagonists deal with various physical things themselves. One of the novels I re-read last night was Straight (1989), whose narrator does the entire novel on crutches.
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You're welcome. I knew about the people; not the trees.
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*hugs*
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You are welcome.
*hugs*
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*internet hugs gladly accepted*
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*hugs*
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Thank you. They make me very happy!
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*hugs*
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P.
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I think that's wonderful. Long may they!
(Thank you.)
*hugs*
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Thank you; you're welcome; I am going to read more Dick Francis tonight.
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Thank you. It really does feel like cheating that way.
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Thank you.
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Thank you so much for the beautiful, thoughtful article about the hibakujumoku. I liked what the elderly consult had to say about the rhetoric of winning. "Their name in Japanese is hibakusha, literally ‘person exposed to the bomb.’ ... This term was chosen rather than ‘survivors’ because that word, by exalting those who had remained alive, would have inevitably offended the many who died in the tragedy."
Hoping for an upturn in your wellbeing.
Nine
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I love that she has them. I hope they keep returning, migration after migration.
Thank you so much for the beautiful, thoughtful article about the hibakujumoku.
You're welcome. It surprised me that I had never heard of them; I thought they, and their human counterpart, were well written about.
Hoping for an upturn in your wellbeing.
Thank you. A metamorphosis.
*hugs*
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Dick Francis is comfort-and-distraction fare par excellence, in my opinion. I'm glad you've been finding it the same, but sorry you have reason to need it. I hope the health stuff improves posthaste.
One of my friends circles had a zoom salon of poetry reading last week; I read your "Σειρήνοιϊν," because it's been one of my favorites since you first posted it yoyears and I thought they'd appreciate it. I was right about that, and it was very well received. This seemed like something the poet ought to know.
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You're welcome! I was glad to learn, and glad to be able to share.
Dick Francis is comfort-and-distraction fare par excellence, in my opinion. I'm glad you've been finding it the same, but sorry you have reason to need it. I hope the health stuff improves posthaste.
I mean, I also read Dick Francis when I am not feeling terrible, but I appreciate the sentiment. (Tell
[edit] I had completely forgotten that For Kicks (1965) ends with [rot13 in case anyone cares] "Naq gura V orpnzr Wnzrf Obaq. Gur raq."
I was right about that, and it was very well received. This seemed like something the poet ought to know.
Thank you for telling me! I am very glad it went over well.
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Gladly accepted.
*hugs*