Today I finally managed to re-register to vote. I’ve been meaning to do this since we moved, but it was complicated and the state of California’s website was a hassle and it required me to mail things and the baby ripped up the thing they mailed me and altogether it was just not going to happen. The reason it finally happened was that I asked for help.
I filled out a short form on vote.org, so I didn’t have to interact with California’s website. They mailed me something to print, and my housemate printed it and brought it to me to sign. I signed it and he put it in the mail. Now I’m registered.
If you’re like me and find bureaucracy interactions terrifying and hard, and don’t expect to succeed at them and as a result you often don’t try, I recommend this: set a timer for ten minutes. Go to vote.org and spend ten minutes taking steps that move you closer to being registered to vote. You are reasonably likely to succeed and be registered by the end of that, or to have enough momentum to continue. This matters – it may not matter if just you do it, but it matters very profoundly if all the people like you do it.
You are not a bad person because you haven’t gotten this figured out yet. You are not a failure because you haven’t gotten this figured out yet. You are not less worthy of a voice in our democracy because you haven’t got this figured out yet.
On your slender body Your jade and coral girdle ornaments chime Like those of a celestial companion Come from the Green Jade City of Heaven. One smile from you when we met, And I become speechless and forget every word. For too long you have gathered flowers, And leaned against the bamboos, Your green sleeves growing cold, In your deserted valley: I can visualise you all alone, A girl harbouring her cryptic thoughts.
You glow like a perfumed lamp In the gathering shadows. We play wine games And recite each other poems. Then you sing “Remembering South of the River” With its heart-breaking verses. We both are talents who paint our eyebrows. Unconventional as I am, I want to possess the promised heart of a beautiful woman like you. It is spring.
Vast mists over the Five Lakes. My dear, let me buy a red painted boat And carry you away.
贈吳門青林校書
珊珊瑣骨、 似碧城仙侶、 一笑相逢淡忘語。 鎮拈花、 倚竹翠袖生寒、 空穀裏、 相見個儂幽緒。
蘭釭低照影、 賭酒評詩、 便唱江南斷腸句。 一樣掃眉才、 偏我清狂、 要消受玉人心許。
正漠漠、煙波五湖春、 待買個紅船載卿同去。
This poem was written in the early-to-mid 1800s by the female poet Wú Zǎo, describing her love for another woman, Qīng Lín. Zǎo wrote several love poems to women, and a play exploring gender identity. You can learn more about her in our podcast!
(Sources: English translation from Tze-Lan D. Sang’s
The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China, p.60-1; original Chinese quoted in
桑梓蘭,
浮現中的女同性戀: 現代中國的女同性愛欲, p.66. I don’t speak Chinese but I have done my best to source this in a useful way!)
This is from the forecast discussion of Major Hurricane Florence from this afternoon. As a meteorologist, when I saw this, my heart sank. They don’t use wording like this for every storm.
Florence is going to be a devastating. There will be huge amounts of flooding, both from inland rain and from costal storm surge. Winds are going to be some of the strongest you can get from a hurricane. People within the path of this storm could lose everything.
If you know anyone who lives on the North or South Carolina coast, tell them that if there’s an evacuation ordered, they need to get the hell out. Do not take chances with this one.
do you ever have like a breakdown but your logical brain is still active just thinking “ok this is annoying can we wrap this up so we can go back to bottling these feelings and like going to work or whatever” lol
like can we finish this early im trying to build a potato farm in minecraft
crime show: well we don’t know what time she was taken but as you can see in this convenience store security footage she’s mouthing something and our lip reading technology tells us she’s saying ‘those three wise men they’ve got a semi by the sea’ which are lyrics to James Blunt’s song ‘Wisemen’ which was playing on that store’s favoured radio station at approximately 3:18PM and she disappears from view exactly five minutes later so therefore
crime show: now see usually we’d manage to get a timestamp from the security footage but unfortunately in this case the cameras only record a live feed and while you would think this means we shouldn’t be able to see the footage at all, luckily a famous Twutch streamer happened to be using it as their background footage while recording yesterday so
yes, but can you blow it up and enhance it?
unfortunately this particular footage is extremely low quality and very grainy but as I zoom in on this super blurry pixelated image you can see the details become much clearer and easier to identify
But what about the extremely specific pollen found on the camera lens?
good eye! originally I didn’t even notice it was there but while combing through the footage I noticed three different people sneezed while in view of the camera. I did some research and found that the particles represent the pollen of this obscure plant life that is native to this particular state, which really doesn’t help us, except that it only ever blooms in the opposite season! So I did some digging and found four nurseries within a 50 mile radius, only one of which sell that plant all year round, which of course means
Hold on just one moment! If the twitch streamer was using the cameras live feed as background, then we should know the time of the crime! The twitch archive should mark how long the streamer had been on by the time of the perpetrators presence onscreen, and if we know when they went live, we will know the time the perpetrator was in the building!
DAMNIT JONES THIS ISN’T YOUR CASE
WELL IT’S MY CASE NOW! The Captain thinks your kidnapping is related to my investigation into that cult up state. So, apparently, we’re supposed to work together. I’m not any happier than you are.
but I hate sharing!
TOUGH SHIT MCNAMARA! Your kidnapping case is somehow connected with that cult that’s been sacrificing its members to in the belief that it will appease the elder god Cthulhu. Now, I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m worse at sharing than a toddler with a new favorite toy, but lives may well be on the line here! Are you willing to put aside our differences, and do what needs to be done?!
Alright, but when we catch the perp he’s mine. I don’t care if he’s sacrificed a hundred victims to goddamn Mickey Mouse! That man may know who killed my father, and I won’t let anyone get in my way – not even someone with your develish smile.
Do you think you’re the only one who wants to find Eric’s murderer?! He was my partner! He was my friend! I know we haven’t worked together before, but this case will have us working together for a while, until we eventually find your fathers killer. And I can see this case taking us a long time, and defining both of our lives for the foreseeable future. But don’t worry McNamara, my years of experience on the force, put together with your grit, tenacity, and loose understanding of the rules will make for a great partnership, with plenty of laughs and sexual tension to go around. Until some being from on high decides the precinct isn’t ready for a same sex couple, and I rekindle my relationship with my previously unmentioned ex-wife. But we, and some unknown watchers of our adventures, will always know we were meant to be together, weirdly large age gap be damned!
Yeah, and while Eric was off playing cops and robbers with you, I grew up without a dad! Do you know how many times I stared at my baseball glove, wishing he was there to throw it to me? You may have lost Eric, but I never even got to have him!
But you’re right. This case will definitely take at least a full year, especially with the fact that we will be constantly interrupted with other, smaller cases, one of which will be halloween themed. We’re working together for the forseeable future, and my playful countenance and morbid wit will very quickly mesh with your hardened attitude and tendency to keep secrets.
And while you go back to your unhappy, stiff relationship with your ex wife, I will be shown having constant meaningless sex with a multitude of beautiful women so that the writers can really get across how Not Gay I am.
It’s gonna be a wild ride, Jones. And there had better be stakeouts.
executive producer dick wolf
This is the best demonstration of the principle of “yes, and” that I have ever seen. They should put this in textbooks.
This is honestly better than most crime shows I have seen 😀
God I just keep thinking about Post-canon Karkat and like there are so many aus focused on all the kids having interspecies offspring but there’s almost no content concerning Karkat’s destiny in rebuilding an entire empire, that’s built off the values of compassion, and communication versus violence and fear and I’m just like why??? Not???
Like without Karkat echidna wouldn’t have even allowed the universe to be created let alone the troll species to repopulate?? Imagine having that responsibility. How seriously he would take that role.
Also I really need to look this up but what if the mother grub had to have slurry samples beforehand in order to make new trolls so instead of all the surviving trolls just putting in their own genetic material they genetically modified (using codes from their own and their dead friends blood) to make completely new trolls. And they make enough the first round just to cover the twelve bloods of the hemospectrum? And like Karkat has the foresight to recognize his new empire is going to need leaders after he’s gone so instead of setting up lusus for all these little wrigglers he ends up pulling a dolorosa on their ass and raises them all firsthand
Basically what I’m proposing is that Karkat ensures the success/longevity of his troll empire by spending the first 18 yrs of it being the best goddamn kindgarten teacher/crabdad possible and everyone else is like these kids cool uncles and aunts and the new troll empire ends up having some of the most balanced, emotionally healthy adult trolls the worlds ever seen lead it.
Plot Designing 