embracingcalm | Reading

U.S. clear‑channel AM stations had a surprisingly strong influence on the Maritime musical landscape. Anne Murray, growing up in Springhill, could pick up stations like WABC at night, and that polished American pop sound shaped her early musical style.

Other powerful U.S. stations carried different influences into the region. WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia, brought bluegrass directly into Maritime homes, while WSM’s Grand Ole Opry broadcasts reached parts of Nova Scotia. This exposure introduced instruments like the banjo and mandolin — along with their distinct picking styles — well before local access to records or returning servicemen’s albums.

Not all parts of the Maritimes received these signals equally. The north shore of New Brunswick often sat outside the skip zone, meaning those U.S. broadcasts simply didn’t reach them. As a result, that region developed along different musical lines, shaped more by Acadian and Quebec influences than by the American country and bluegrass that took root elsewhere.

U.S. AM radio didn’t just entertain the Maritimes — it rewired the region’s musical genetics.

soemand

I’m now officially a refugee from my breakfast place. My beloved diner—convenient, tasty, and stubbornly unpretentious—didn’t survive the fentanyl‑driven chaos downtown. A tiny tragedy in the grand scheme of things, but still a real loss. It had everything: off‑street parking, a breakfast plate that could make a cardiologist weep (three eggs, ham, sausage, bacon), and that perfect diner‑blend coffee designed to be drunk black and without ceremony.

So today I went wandering in search of a replacement. I think I’ve found a Saturday‑morning lifeboat, even if it doesn’t come with the familiar cast of regulars who used to provide the unofficial community‑theatre element of breakfast.

A small deli in the city market served me a smoked‑salmon open‑faced bagel so good it felt like it should come with a warning label. Capers, cheese, the whole thing balanced like a tiny edible miracle. They even have a few stools, and the staff has exactly the right level of quirky charm. They asked how I was when I walked in; I said “slow,” and they assured me they had the cure. And honestly… they kind of did.

Current Mood: sated
Current Music: Joe Jackson; It's different for girls

soemand

Remember frantically redialing a radio station to win concert tickets? I didn’t realize that skill would come in handy again—until yesterday.

My knee flared up, and getting a walk-in clinics doctor’s appointment turned into a full‑on redial marathon. I called over 280 times before I finally got through. It felt exactly like trying to be caller number nine, just with much higher stakes.

The good news: once I got in, the visit and the prescription worked wonders. My knee went from miserable to feeling 1000% better.

Turns out those old radio‑contest reflexes still pay off.

lillilah

Our garden is mostly gravel, but grass can still grown in gravel, so it does. With all the rain, the grass in the section of the yard furthest from the house was getting out of control. So, I took out the scythe. I had worried that it would be heavy, but it wasn't at all. However, it was pretty dull. So, today, I took out the sharpening stone that came with our chisel set and sharpened it up. After that, it was super easy to cut the grass. However, I need to get a sickle, as the scythe is good for big areas, not the border by other plants. I do actually have a sickle, but it is serrated and doesn't do the job I want it to do.

asakiyume

Cumbia
Sometimes I have perfectly wonderful dreams--this morning, for example. I dreamed I was invited onto the dance floor to dance cumbia. I've had exactly one cumbia lesson in my life--not even a whole lesson; it was tacked onto a salsa lesson. But in the dream, I put aside all timidity, joined my partner, and it was perfect. We were so in sync; we improvised--I can catch the feeling just writing these words. This had the same joy as dreams of flying: incredible, freeing movement.

Krucial
The cashier was a young guy with fluffy hair pulled back in a pony tail. His name tag said "Krucial."
"That's an awesome name," I said.
"My mom gave it to me. It was on a wrapper," he said. [Maybe related to this: Krucial Rapid Response]
"That's great," I said. "You're crucial for your mom!"
"Awww, thank you!" he said, and and we high-fived.

Snowy Owl
A snowy owl has been hanging out near where I live. All the birders in the area are going there and taking pictures of it, and some of these have filtered into my social media, and they're magnificent, like this one, by someone named Dale Woods:
Snowy owl in a snowy field of corn stubble

Snowy owl in a snowy field of corn stubble

Sturgeon
Elsewhere on social media someone recommended the story "The Man Who Lost the Sea" (1959), by Theodore Sturgeon. I've never actually read anything by him, and the person linked to a 2009 reprint in Strange Horizons, so I gave it a read. The poster said it involved a surprising twist. Well not really: I understood the situation halfway through. But I liked the story all the same: the writing was lovely, and I wanted to see how the main character would realize the truth. This, very near the end, struck me especially:

For no farmer who fingers the soil with love and knowledge, no poet who sings of it, artist, contractor, engineer, even child bursting into tears at the inexpressible beauty of a field of daffodils—none of these is as intimate with Earth as those who live on, live with, breathe and drift in its seas.

If you want to read it, here's the link: "The Man Who Lost the Sea."

Current Music: Cumbia sonidera: Que Haria

endotoxin

I don't remember when I got the call. Ryan, her roommate, he never called me. He was always there living in her shadow.

We used to drink at Joes on Vassar. We'd hang out at club Thursday nights and then drop by Insomnia Coffeehouse afterwards. Or we'd go by Geckos and have the best Reuben sandwich in town. She'd drink Smithwicks, and I'd drink... cheaply.

Later, we'd come to hangout at the press club. Getting membership was dead easy; they wouldn't even bother taking your pulse as long as you paid the fee up front. But then I stopped smoking and the manager was a shithead and slowly we drifted apart: me trying to pursue a better life and her, locked in her anxiety and depression.

So I knew why Ryan was calling. I wasn't terribly surprised. He'd tried giving her CPR the entire time he waited for the EMTs to arrive but the hole in her gut had been leaking poison for far too long.

This morning I came across the notice of her memorial, buried in a stack of post cards. And I wonder if I could've been a better friend.

tsuki_no_bara

oh my flist i am so tired and of course it has nothing to do with the fact that i stayed up late last night watching the curling. ahem. the us women lost to great britain and i'd feel bad about it except britain's last stone - which won them the game - was an absolutely beautiful shot. seriously, it was perfect. i went to bed partway through the us men vs britain, which was apparently the right move because it was such a rout they called it early. good job, british curlers, and i mean that sincerely.

(and yes i did think of

amberdreams while the brits were winning. :D )

tonight i watched some ~~holy shit thighs~~ men's speed skating and the women's figure skating free skate and was alysa liu having fun or what? hers was such a joyful program. afterwards it looked like she was both congratulating and comforting ami nakai for her bronze - she's like seventeen! i thought her skating was beautiful but evidently it wasn't good enough for gold - and then she hugged the japanese coaches and her coaches hugged the japanese coaches and everyone was hugging (and poor kaori sakamoto was crying and i felt so bad for her because her program was also beautiful) and i gotta say, i love it so much when the medal winners (and almost-medal winners) are so excited for each other.

now i'm watching women's hockey, the gold medal game, and i know how it ends but it's fun to watch anyway.

if you've been watching the norwegian curlers at all (i haven't) you may or may not wonder where the funkypants are. the reason is kind of sad but very sweet.

someone who knows about catholic ritual objects will have to tell me what these altar boys are curling with. and no, i don't mean the brooms. :p

wrap-up of the first week of olympics now that we're almost through the second week. since they mention boopgate i can share that i've had like four conversations about it - with fellow curlers, with the group text, with some of my fellow admins, and with friend s from the libraries. (she's telling everyone that she knows someone with the inside scoop on curling and i keep telling her i probably don't know as much as she thinks i do. like, i had no idea double-touching was a thing, much less that it was an illegal thing.)

this year the cross country skiiers were joined by a very excited doggo. he wasn't fast enough to qualify for a medal run but definitely seemed happy to be there.

in non-olympics news i share pancake day pics from london. people are so weird sometimes but also so fun and silly. and you can't deny the power of the pancake. :D

Current Mood: also i have a headache, sigh
Current Music: it's us vs canada

snowazalea

I have been curious about what I was doing twenty years ago, and this afternoon while I was doing my facial treatments, I took out my old journals.

I wrote a poem, and I’m not sure if it’s haiku-inspired or sijo-inspired. I am not sharing it because it is “good.” I am sharing it because it is pure, unadulterated me at 26:

I make my evening
of roses, antique lace and milk
For a moment I am a belle.

I wanted to add some commas in there when I typed that out, but I resisted. What was I talking about? I have no idea, but it’s interesting to ponder.

I was working night shift at the time, which was really hard on me both physically and emotionally. I really dreaded the evening, when I would leave for work. My shift started at 7 p.m., so I probably left around 6:15. So I was probably constructing a fantasy evening that contrasted as much with the real one as much as possible, an evening of pink and ivory colors, fragrance, and femininity.

At some point, I had to start wearing glasses rather than contacts because my eyes hurt so badly. I cringed at my looks. And I taped my safety glasses to my glasses, so they wouldn’t slip off, to add insult to injury.

I try not to think too badly of night shift now, because if my plant ever closes, or I’m laid off (the former seems likely at this point), I may have to take what I can get for a time. My biorhythms have changed a lot, too. My shift starts at 7 a.m. now, and I’m in agony. Years ago, my shift started at 5 a.m., and it was no problem. Manufacturing plants have a special way of coming up with the most sadistic shifts ever. The one I left to come here was 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Also, I have had to start wearing glasses again lately. My eyes were hurting so badly in contacts. When I got my eye exam last week, I got my first progressive lenses prescription. Today was my first day wearing progressive lenses. It’s not nearly as big of a deal as I thought, and I can read the tiny, tiny text on the little chemical bottles at work, which has been a daily struggle for me for a long time, since I am constantly having to record lot numbers and expiration dates for stuff I use in my lab notebook.

I feel like my glasses look like the ones that a girl I once admired online wore (she doesn’t seem to keep any accounts anymore). She wore medieval costumes sometimes, and somehow I feel a step closer to making my medieval outfits.

All in all, I am doing a lot better right here, right now, in 2026, than I was in 2006. I wish I could visit with my past self, because I would have a lot to say.

lillilah

I'm super tired from the vaccine and achy, but not itchy or anything. I just need to eat another meal, bathe, and then I can go back to bed.

asakiyume

It's extremely excellent to come across a short story completely at random, from someone I don't know at all, and then fall in love with it. (I love reading stories from people I know, too, of course! But in those cases, I already know I'm likely to love the story, whereas when it's by someone I don't know, it's an unexpected surprise.)

"Do You Love the Color of the Sky?" by Rachel Rosen was just such a story. In it, the curator of a museum that collects art and artifacts from the multiverse's doomed timelines (and who has a pet dodo from a timeline where dodos weren't hunted to extinction) is confronted by a thief from one of those doomed timelines who wants to take back what's either a plundered item or a rescued item, depending on what side of museum discourse you fall on. The multiverse is a great place for museum discourse, it turns out!

But beyond that, the story's just got a great narrative voice and some killer lines, such as...

Hadn't this always been the pattern of civilization? Tea and bullets were undeniably intertwined.

and

"But your world is dying."
I hadn't expected her smile. The bullet had been gentler.
"Every world dies," the thief said. "Even yours."

Here's how the thief is described on first appearance:

You can sometimes tell where [a multiverse traveler is] from at a glance. A gleaming bull’s horn on a chain around the throat, or a shangrak tattoo. A Hapsburg jaw or a colony of melanomas, if it’s one of the worse timelines. Not this woman. She had burst from the fire fully formed and innocent of all history.

And the various artifacts themselves, and the possibilities (or tragedies) of the various timelines are great.

Free to read here: "Do You Love the Color of the Sky?"

Rachel Rosen has also apparently written a short story titled, "What if we kissed while sinking a billionaire's yacht?" which short story lends its title to Issue One of Antifa Journal, with this great cover. To read the story requires purchasing the journal, but as an ebook it's only $4.99, so I'm sore tempted.

lillilah

I have got to remember that if I am having some kind of scan, I need to take my earrings out. The thicker ones are very very hard for me to pry open. After a lot of trying today, I managed to do it, but it was a real challenge. Luckily, we found the tool a while back that lets Joel put them back in for me, so at least that part won't be awful.

soemand

Lately I’ve been digging deep into my usual maze of musical rabbit holes, and I stumbled onto a wonderfully gritty late‑60s French yé‑yé artist who instantly grabbed me. There’s something raw and charming in that sound that feels perfect as the anchor for my next mixtape.
I’m shaping the vibe now. Stay tuned for the next drop — it’s going to have some real texture.

mbarrick

Embarrassingly badly made (but still delicious) pancakes
via Instagram

snowazalea

This last week I did so much adulting!

And not a moment too soon.

Today at work, a screw suddenly fell out of my glasses, and they fell apart right off my face. My coworker found the screw for me. There was no way I could have found something so tiny with glasses on or off. Nathan put them back together when I got back home. I am blind as a mole without them, and it was hard getting through the day, though luckily I had prescription sunglasses for my drive home.

Even though it felt like such overkill, I went to the eye doctor early last week, got a new pair of glasses, then a couple days later took my new prescription to the safety glasses place and got some safety glasses for work. So, when all these new glasses come in, I will be so happy and relieved, because in my experience, once the glasses fall apart and are put back together, they will fall apart again and again. It felt so unnecessary, and I got caught in major traffic on both errands, but apparently I was not over-adulting.

( some mention of poop... )

So that was absolutely the climax of my adulting, and I hope that will be the end of the stress. New kit, please, and I am better informed about how to provide the sample.

After dropping that off at UPS, I treated myself to a trip to Michael's and got some craft supplies. I found this amazing set of red stamp pads on Valentine's Day clearance as well as some ribbon to finish off my 2026 Christmas ornament, and many new cross stitch threads for a project I'm resurrecting: a fairy dressed in yellow on a yellow buttercup.

The stamp pad is made for Barbie's hand, so that you can have Barbie stamp your stationary, if you want to, though I don't want to get my girl around the ink. The original ink pad is dried up. There was just a little bit on the stamp, and I could see it was more of a magenta color. I'm sure there's a way I can resurrect the ink pad. However, the four colors in my Valentine set are lovely, and it's so easy to work with. I also had the nerve to sharpen my pencil, which was nerve-wracking, because it didn't sharpen easily. Working with these this afternoon reminded me of doing the same thing in my childhood. When I put my used stationary back in the heart-shaped box, I remembered that I had done just that when I was a child as well.

Loving You Barbie's reproduction jewelry set is stunning and really completes her as a set. She's easily the star of my collection.

Current Mood: pleased

lillilah

I'm doing this silly painting that is supposed to look like an embroidery project. It is so fun! For some reason painting the background to look like felt and even just the idea of painting something to look like a button is just too funny. Hopefully, it will work. :)

soemand

Forget the Olympics; I've decided that ignoring them is officially a sport in its own right this year. Instead of watching the world stage, I've been retreating into the analog world, and I'm finding the RTM C60 is a perfect modern substitute for the high-end vintage tapes I usually hunt for. I'm actually pretty impressed—it's been running flawlessly without a single "niggle".

I had a great win during a run to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore recently-I managed to snag a Chromium Dioxide version of Paul Young's 1983 classic, No Parlez. I'm curious to see how well the chrome tape has held up after forty years.

It's a timely find, too, since I just featured Young on my latest blue-eyed soul mixtape. He helped define that specific soulful-yet-synthy 80s sound.

agaricae

Social aspect of my life feels like its in a dumpster. All the momentum from december disappeared, but im not surprised to say the least. Yesterday was a fucking trainwreck in all aspects of my life. I feel like im going fucking nowhereeee…… I feel so embarrassing! It makes me wanna kms fr. Ive been finding it hard to work on my hobbies too. Oh well. Need to pick up my wallet from the transit center. Im scared that a card might have been swiped. I’m mostly worried about my dad’s fsa card tbh; i locked my cards as soon as it happened (well, a couple of minutes after.) Whateverrrrr……. Im waiting on spring… pls heal me.

tsuki_no_bara

i hope the americans in the audience who had the day off had a relaxing and/or fun one, and that for everyone who didn't have the day off (or who doesn't live in the us...) it wasn't too monday a monday. i have watched almost no olympics but i did take myself out for lunch (steak tips! side salad! a pile of very good rice pilaf!) and, uh, bring a bunch of clothes to goodwill. and i read! an actual book! for once! which was very relaxing.

(i also got a rice pudding to go because i wanted it but i was too full after lunch. i got it with whipped cream which might have been a mistake because said whipped cream has totally lost its structural integrity in the fridge. rice pudding still looks good at least and will probably be breakfast tomorrow.)

canada finally won a couple gold medals - both kazakhstan (men's figure skating) and brazil (men's alpine skiing) beat them to gold - brazil got a gold altho the guy used to ski for norway (his mom is brazilian) so, y'know, he grew up in a winter-sports country - also his gold was the first winter olympics medal for any south american country ever which is pretty cool - anyway. canada set off a curling scandal! boopgate. which is evidently only partly about the fact that some of the men were touching the stone after throwing it, which is technically illegal but unevenly enforced (i think the whole thing started when sweden wanted some clarification on the rules over booping), and more about their very unsportsmanlike conduct. like, there was swearing. and lying. (a hint: if you're going to insist you didn't boop the stone and fuck you, sweden, for suggesting it, maybe first make sure there isn't video evidence of you doing that very thing.) (because one of the canadians was caught on tape very obviously booping the stone.) it's apparently a thing that happens - the booping, not the swearing, i mean curling is generally a pretty polite sport - and there's always the possibility someone booped the stone unconsciously, but did i mention the highly unsportsmanlike swearing? it seems to have snowballed a bit and caught the canadian women as well and now that everyone's so focused on the booping a bunch of other teams have been seen doing it.

curling, man.

the baby has a broom. SOCUTE.

i've seen mostly bits and pieces of other sports - a few ends of the women's curling (us vs china), some pairs skating, some women's monobob (not monoboob, self), some women's biathlon (i wanted to see the greenlandic biathlete but no luck), some men's figure skating. poor quad god. he fell twice and came in eighth and i felt so bad for him altho he sounded very mature and thoughtful and philosophical after his program when he got off the ice and some reporter stuck a mic in his face and basically asked "so how does it feel to have fucked up your chance at a gold medal?" so many of the guys fell tho. and he and the kazakh skater hugged and it looked like ilia congratulated him and it was very sweet.

i have yet to see any skiing. just moguls, no downhill.

local curling last night went better than last week - by which i mean no one fell and hurt themselves - and i made a couple good shots altho we lost anyway. and saturday for valentine's day i went to the dentist and got my comics (well, comic) and met my sister for dinner and a 40th anniversary showing of pretty in pink. pretty in pink is forty, good lord. it was never my favorite john hughes movie but jon cryer and annie potts remain extremely adorable. but the love story is kind of half-assed - like, why are these two kids interested in each other in the first place? - and for all the judging of blane being rich it's andie's hangup, not his. he seems legitimately earnest and sincere in his attraction to her and she second-guesses him because he has money and she doesn't. also i didn't like her remade prom dress the first time i saw the movie and i don't like it now. it's ugly and boring. but the soundtrack is still *chef's kiss*. whatever else you want to say about john hughes movies, they always had absolutely banging soundtracks.

for the heated rivalry fen in the audience, if you haven't seen it, have an interview with rachel reid. i keep wondering how many people are watching olympics hockey because of the show and/or books.

Current Mood: good
Current Music: star wars

crystaldream47

Just thought I’d write a little something here today, hopefully it’ll make me feel a better.

Many years ago (11 in fact, jeez), I took French class for my sophomore, junior and senior years of high school. As a freshman, I took Spanish class and wasn’t really impressed or interested in it, despite the fact that I could pass it no problem. But I wanted to take French because I wanted to be in touch with my Louisiana roots. I had such a deep love for the class that I was reading the textbook for the second level during my first level class. Even after leaving high school, I still kept up with French. One of my favorite singers of all time, Celine Dion, is from Quebec and started her singing career in French, and she’s the one I credit for helping me keep up with it. I enjoyed French music and started watching Youtube videos in French. Of course, my listening skills were always not that great, but I could always read lyrics or put automated subtitles so I could understand what they were saying. I loved the French language so much that I intially planned to move to Quebec someday, however I kept seeing things about how Canada, Australia and New Zealand had trouble accepting immigrants with disabilities (I have autism and ADHD, btw), so I had to switch gears and try to move to France. Recently, I was planning to go visit Paris with my sister for my 30th birthday. But *dramatic pause* tragedy struck…

Of course, this is going to sound ridiculous, but bear with me. So… I had known there was racism in France. Yes, no country in the world is perfect, but France in particular always had this reputation for being really egregious with its brand of racism. I was very aware of this though, and I still persisted with my desire with visiting and living in the country. That was until I decided to search videos in French about racism… almost every single is overrun with racism in the comments. Almost EVERY single video. Like Jesus fucking Christ dude, it’s insane. This put me into a state of mental anguish that last about week or two. I would search videos over and over again, and read the comments, trying to look for something good, not to no abail. And it even worse because I’m no longer my anxiety med for health reasons. Ultimately, after the last time, it just hit a point where I couldn’t take it more.

So, now I’m officially done with the French language and I’m not planning to move to France. It was hard decision to come to, but it had to be done. I’m just done.

Currently, I’m shopping for other languages to learn and other countries to move to. At the time of writing, I’m not moving to Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, or Switzerland, and I’m pretty iffy on Portugal as well. Other considerations include Australia and… ugh the UK (it’s only a last resort though). The Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish) look interesting and I’m looking into Mandarin Chinese as well. Heh, looks like even when I’m down in the dumps, I still find ways to be interested in stuff.

If there’s any life lesson to be gleaned from this, I guess it’s “giving up your passions is hard, but that doesn’t mean giving up in general.” Yeah, let’s go with that. Okay, I’ve run out of steam, so I’m going to go now. Okay byeeeee~

Current Mood: lazy
Current Music: The Gift by Annie Lennox

lillilah

I'm having such a good time with Planet Crafter, a video game of terraforming a planet. Getting a blue sky is just the beginning. This tech tree game unlocks new things you can build as the terraforming progresses, like when you have reached a certain heat, you unlock this machine, and when you reach that amount of oxygen, you unlock an upgrade for something else. There is some story going on in the background, but I don't have all the pieces yet. However, using my upgraded jet pack, I was able to get into the giant crashed ship in the magma zone, where I was able to finally get a few methane cartridges, which should hopefully be enough to make the upgrade for my dismantling tool. The reviews are correct that it is a surprisingly low stress game.

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Page generated Feb. 22nd, 2026 01:26 am

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embracing_calm

Reading

Banjo by Skywave: The Radio Roots of Maritime Bluegrass

Mourning Eggs and Moving On

Redialing Like It’s 1989

Garden

cumbia, krucial, snowy owl, sturgeon

Kouri

yes this is almost entirely olympics

(no subject)

Vaccine effects

"Do You Love the Color of the Sky?"

Once again

yé‑yé

Embarrassingly badly made (but still delicious) pancakes…

Loving Barbie

Painting felt

Analog retreat

I just dont know

i could use another day off

France is no longer my goal, looking elsewhere

Games

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