amberfocus | Reading

For anonymous.

“It’s the latest thing, Arthur,” Eames says. “It’s all anybody wants this year for Christmas.”

Of course Eames would know all about the hot gift, thrusting it into Arthur’s lap.

He studies it in confusion. “It’s…a weird monster stuffed animal holding…makeup?”

“Collectibles with skincare, darling.”

“You know I don’t approve of makeup yet,” Arthur grumbles, constantly resisting this aging shit.

“Not makeup, skincare.”

Arthur gives Eames a look.

“Anyway, she’ll be the most popular girl at school with one of these. Can’t find them anywhere.”

Well. That’s a telling sentence. “Where did you get this?” Arthur asks suspiciously.

Eames grins.

earlgreytea68

For anonymous.

Hope is the thing that forces Pete out of bed in the morning. It’s exhausting. Sometimes he thinks it would be easier to just give up. But he remains stubbornly hopelessly hopeful.

Patrick says suddenly, “You know, you’re the one who gives me hope.”

Pete snorts. “Me? I can barely manage my own hope.”
“Probably because you’re too busy managing mine for me. Hey.” Patrick falls silent until Pete looks at him, curious. “Thanks. I would have given up. But you never stop hoping.”

And it’s exhausting, this relentless hope, but looking at Patrick, Pete remembers why he does it.

earlgreytea68

For starrla89

Sometimes John gets a wistful longing to close one hand around a baseball, to slip the other hand into a glove, and have the outdoors equal baseball, the way it did for most of his life. Sometimes he remembers how many years he spent viewing grass only as the canvas for the field, a background for the ball to pop against.

Sherlock never seems to miss baseball with the acuteness that attacks John…but always seems attuned to when that mood hits John, showing up with ball and glove and an invitation of studied casualness. “Care for a game of catch?”

kaffy_r

Help!

As probably most of you know, I normally enter a Holiday and Christmas card writing frenzy around this time of year. Last year I didn't, since the outcome of Nov. 5 depressed me so badly.

This year I decided to revive the tradition; I'm not going to let Cheetoh ruin another holiday season for me. And for the most part, writing and addressing cards has been as much fun as it always was.

Just one problem: my Gmail contacts list has turned wonky, and I've lost way too many of the addresses I've used to send y'all cards in the past.

So, in the spirit of beating whatever the hell group of gremlins invaded my contacts, and more importantly, in the spirit of sending cards to everyone to whom I've sent cards before, can I ask folks to give me their IRL addresses? If you're not comfortable with that, could you send me an email address to which I can send an e-holiday card?

If you're ok with that, just DM me. You will make this old blue-haired broad very happy.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: RM "Seoul"

denise posting in

dw_news

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

earlgreytea68

I call these Advent drabbles because I happen to be celebrating Advent, but they are really just December drabbles. Let's make it through the slog of this last (and in the northern hemisphere usually DARK) month of the year in some style! I've been doing these now for seventeen years and times may change but many things stay the same (namely, the joy of a good fic).

So! As usual, here's how this works: Leave a comment on this entry to be gifted a drabble sometime during the first twenty-four days of December. Anonymous commenting should be enabled, so you shouldn't need a DW account. Your comment should be a one-word prompt, holiday-themed or not, and if you want you can also request specific characters/'verses. I'll post a drabble a day matching the first 24 prompts, starting on December 1.

Drabbles will be posted on DW (and thus cross-posted to LJ) and also on Tumblr. If you let me know your Tumblr username, I'll tag you on the Tumblr post so you're sure to see it! You can also remain anonymous, if you prefer.

HAPPY DECEMBER, EVERYONE!!!!!

kaffy_r

I Am Blessed ...

.. even though I don't believe in blessings on most days ending in y. I have so much good in my life, and so many good people in my life, that some days I can hardly believe that the world has given them to me.

Today in the U.S., a huge number of us celebrate Thanksgiving, and we do it with family gatherings that more than occasionally descend into chaos (both the good and bad kinds), food that generally involves a huge turkey, too much stuffing, too many mashed potatoes or candied yams, probably some green bean casserole and canonical pumpkin pie (I prefer squash pie, but that's me) and innumerable college football games. And although it sounds as if I am mocking all that, I am not. All of this somehow combines to make a good thing.

It's also a day of mourning for members of First Nations and Indigenous Americans, who remember the landing of the Mayflower as the start of a centuries-long genocide, complete with theft of land, broken promises, broken families, and loss of culture. I don't want to write about my thankfulness, without acknowledging that the stories we learned in elementary school about The First Thanksgiving were so wrong as to be evil. I hope that those nations and tribes can find some glimmer of thankfulness in this day. God knows you deserve more than a little.

Moar importantly, I am grateful for the friends I have in Chicago and Canada, and everywhere else. You are so loved by me.

Finally, I am grateful to all of you here on Dreamwidth - whether you celebrated Thanksgiving last month up in Canada, down here across the U.S. or never at all in Europe, Australia, Africa, Asia, and everywhere else across the world. You have made my life infinitely more rich, more full of conversation, laughter, intent thought and completely spectacular funniness.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Current Mood: thankful
Current Location: Heading out for Thanksgiving dinner
Current Music: Patti Smith "Horses/Gloria"

kaffy_r

Music Meme, Day 13

The first song that plays on shuffle:

Well, the first difficulty is that I, being monotonously linear, don't use shuffle. I think I've used shuffle on my winamp list (yes, that's how old I am; I love winamp) once, and I stopped using it almost immediately. I like organizing my lists in a way that makes sense to me. So I thought I'd have to scratch this entry. Next, I thought I'd just pick one of the songs that are halfway through my current 111-song list.

But then I thought I'd try to be true to the meme. I toggled "shuffle" and waited for the first song. It turned out to be Stray Kids' recent piece, "Ceremony."

Welp. It's one of the rare SKZ pieces that I respect, but not one I'd necessarily introduce a Stray Kids newbie. Still, rules are rules, and here you go. It really is a good song. It's just not one of my multitudinous SKZ favorites.

Watch on YouTube

So I'll also include one of the songs I pinpointed as being smack dab in the middle of my list, or at least as smack dab as an uneven list allows. It's a piece by the Irish duo Saint Sister, called "Causing Trouble." I think I might have shown the actual music video for the song at some point in the past, but this is their live performance of it, many years ago. It's definitely one that I love, and sing along to. They're whip smart and lovely.

Watch on YouTube

And I'm just going to link you to the last meme entry I made, so that you can catch up on previous entries, should you desire.

Current Mood: exanimate
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: RM "Everything Goes"

kaffy_r

Hey, J.D.

Keep my country out of your fucking mouth.

JFC.

Current Mood: angry
Current Location: the living room
Current Music: RM "Forever Rain"

kaffy_r

Music Meme, Day 12

A song that you feel nostalgic about:

The meme actually states "a song that you feel nostalgic to" but that makes little sense. On the other hand, I have been thinking about what song I might actually feel nostalgic about for the last day or so.

Yesterday it came to me; the instrumental pieces that I listened to on my mother's "Mantovani Manhattan" album (For years I've thought the album was called Mantovani Does Manhattan, but that doesn't seem to be the case.)

When I was about nine or 10, I listened to both sides of the album again and again. And again. And yet again. One of the reasons I know my family loved me was the fact that no one came into Mum's room, grabbed the record and broke it over my head. It didn't matter to me that Mantovani was apparently considered middle-brow at best - frankly, because I didn't know, but I wouldn't have cared even if I did.

I confess that I was fonder of the A side, because it had my favorite pieces: Harlem Nocturne and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue. I can't tell you today what precisely drew me to those pieces. I think I liked the music of Harlem Nocturne better than Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, but I kind of liked the title of Slaughter - and it was quite the overblown piece, which probably also appealed to me. I didn't know until I started putting this post together that Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was originally the name of a 1936 Balanchine ballet with music by Richard Rodgers. It was also the nane of a 1957 movie about New York waterfront union wars, or so states Madame Wiki. I think I'd like the ballet better.

Anyhow, here are my two favorite pieces.

Watch on YouTube

(And here are the previous days: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11)

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Mantovani: Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

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Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

Not Rose-Colored Glasses

Reading

Advent Drabble 3 - Adolescent Lucky

Advent Drabble 2 - Hope

Advent Drabble 1 - Bang & Clatter

Dept. of Where the Hell Are They?

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL ADVENT DRABBLES!!!!!!

Dept. of Thankfulness

Dept. of Memes

Dept. of WTF

Dept. of Memes

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February 2023

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