๐ŸŽง listened to: gender spiral podcast “money sucks -and- you can do it (w/river nice)”

Listen to the episode here / Transcript / Youtube / Podcast RSS

Really excellent money-focused episode which talks about some of the differences between how queer people handle money vs. non-queer people (example: needing money for HRT, money to move out of the country for safety, etc.), some of the ways you can get started thinking about money in a healthy way, how to talk about money with your friends, mutual aid and how to plan for it, and lots more!

I especially liked a part about how older gen can’t handle how things have changed for us, not because they’re being willfully obtuse, but because it makes them scared for us! And they don’t have the emotional regulation skills needed to handle it properly.

Also this quote from River Nice, from 00:52:20:

I’m like, “I empathize a lot for my parents. I empathize for anyone in debt.” It’s like, we’re in truly unimaginable times that we all have to somehow navigate, but we have each other. Actually, all we have is each other. We literally don’t have anything else. We don’t have the money in the bank, it’s not real. You say the stock market might not exist in 30 years, that’s so true.

That’s where it all has to come back in all of the work that I do is like, “Yes, I want you to understand how the rules currently exist, how they’re currently played. I want you to creatively play them as best you can, but also, what can we be setting up that we have options in the future? We can talk about diversification. We can, some of us put some money in the stock market to have some options there.

We can buy some property to have some options there. We can invest in skills, like trade school, like cooking, gardening. We can invest in relationships, in healthy conflict.”

River Nice’s website, Be Intentional Financial. Free stuff offered (on resources page) include: How to Live Your Life While In Debt, Budgeting workshop, How to Talk to Loved Ones about Money, How to Buy a House Outside the Nuclear Family.

๐Ÿ”— ai spams fediverse, zine library, permacomputing

Happy Saturday! It’s absolutely beautiful outside and I sat for several hours this morning under a tree, reading Moby-Duck

Some links for you:

Aphyr wrote about an ongoing issue on Mastodon where AI spam accounts are signing up and getting through the initial checks; these are small, super-specific servers for tiny groups of people (queer/kinky/cozy fans even) and the bots use language with specific keywords and phrases to seem human enough to get through. The comments have some discussion about what this could mean for moderation/community engagement and how small communities survive on personal recommendations.

The Locavore Guide to Shopping New York City is a (physical!) directory of small indie shops with amazing local good! The writer does fun TikTok videos of her tracking down specific foods (and other stuff) and recently came out with this guide. There’s a website version too but honestly the book is so cute and would be great to carry around while sightseeing.

This is an AMAZING project: a directory of Georgia pagan groups from 1996-2025, WITH contact info and links to websites and so on. The author (Munuลกninanna) built it using data from WitchVox (RIP) and other internet sources; they include a great sources page, and even a 90s pagan webring page! Really a fab effort and I’m seriously considering doing one for California. (I do have an in-progress Pagan Links page with some stuff listed, in the meanwhile.)

Somebody’s uploaded a bunch of 90s dELiA*s catalogs images to Tumblr! Nobody at my middle school dressed like this, but we all wanted to.

If you’re a dumpster diver, or a wanna be diver, then Dumpstermap.org may be helpful to you.

Some zine links: Sherwood Forest Zine Library has a digital branch with tons of interesting zines; Echo Zines wrote a great review of Wort, a journal dedicated to herbalism through the lens of intersectional activism; The Zinester’s Guide to Staples and Stock (PDF version) is available from Cracked Egg Press for $3, or $1.50 with coupon ILOVESTAPLES until August 3rd.

Couple new releases from Project Gutenberg that caught my eye: On Old Cape Cod by Ferdinand C. Lane; The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, Issue 2, April 7, 1832; and A Tour in Mongolia by Beatrix Manico Gull.

@tamaranth wrote a great review of The Scandalous Letters of V and J by Felicia Davin, a queer fantasy romance which I’m adding to my TBR ASAP.

A few computer-y links:

Permacomputing is “both a concept and a community of practice oriented around issues of resilience and regenerativity in computer and network technology inspired by permaculture.” Be sure to check out their library and projects pages, too!

DistroWatch.com tracks Linux releases and projects.

PrePostPrint “highlights experimental publications made with free software” which in practice seems to be a mix of text production and ways to make the web into a text production, more or less. Some very interesting things in the resources list!


Need more stuff to read? I’ve compiled all previous linkspam posts here on my website, or you can explore the linkspam tag to find more.

๐Ÿ“– reading log: moby-duck by donovan hohn

Book Info

Genre: Nonfiction, Popular Science, Travel

LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/book/291465892

Acquired from: Little Free Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA [see visit log]

Started reading: July 29, 2025

Finished reading: August 6, 2025

Review

(Written August 6, 2025; cross-posted to LibraryThing)

Overall I enjoyed this book, though I think the title/cover does it a bit of a disservice. It makes it seem like a very scientific book with a lot of history about plastic ducks floating in the ocean, but really it’s more of a travel memoir with some popular science bits mixed in. The last two sections in particular were heavy on the personal anecdotes and less about plastic ducks– possibly because the author hadn’t seen any for years by that point.

That said, it DID make me more interested about oceanography and oceanographers. I enjoyed the mix of travel, science, and history. The author describes people vividly, without being rude about their quirks, and you can tell he likes people. I’m uncertain if it was worth it for him to quit his job and pursue the plastic ducks (especially since he had a young child at the time!) but I suppose that’s just me being judgemental. (Although considering how many times he quotes Arctic explorers, I can’t help but wonder if wanting to explore himself mixed with fear of fatherhood led to suddenly wanting to go on a multi-year quest. Anyway.)

Reading Updates

Page 1: Found a promo postcard for 4Ocean.com inside the book and am using it as a bookmark

Continue reading “๐Ÿ“– reading log: moby-duck by donovan hohn”

๐Ÿ“š lfl visit log (1)

Went for what turned out to be an hour-long walk around the neighborhood and visited five Little Free Libraries– and found some great books!

The majority were full of kids books, which makes sense I suppose as people tend to load up on those at thrift stores and whatnot, so they’re easy to pass along.

My favorite LFL was #119554, not least because I found two books which look really good! It also had the best design, with one box for adult books and one for children’s books, a separate dog treat library and even a water bowl. Super cute!

As far as I can tell, all these libraries are the pre-built ones from the LFL website.

LFL Visited

  1. LFL #89560 “Elm Tree Little Library” – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Square Foot Gardening.
  2. LFL #119554 – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Climate Resilience and Seasons of the Wild.
  3. LFL #135682 “Barking Dog Library” – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Moby-Duck.
  4. LFL #177207 – Ann Arbor, MI.
  5. LFL #178758 – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Paradise Rot.
Continue reading “๐Ÿ“š lfl visit log (1)”

๐Ÿ“ weeknotes (july 20-26)

Gotta get back to doing these! So:

Life Updates

Mostly I’ve been busy settling into my newest housesit and sorting through my new-to-me thrift store clothes (DW). I’ve got everything washed, but unfortunately the homeowners didn’t leave me a lot of hangers so half the clothes are in a pile in the closet (and I don’t have a dresser, lol). One of the downsides of nomadic living, I suppose…

๐Ÿˆโ€โฌ› Me and the cats are slowly getting used to each other. (See previous post [access-locked] for more info!) They’re all picky about wet food flavors and they have different flavors they’re picky about, which is irritating. One cat loves salmon, the other wants tuna and the third prefers chicken bits. Luckily they all eat the dry food, so if one doesn’t finish the wet food they can supplement with other stuff. Silly kitties!

Media Consumption

๐ŸŽง I’ve been catching up on Cruising, a queer documentary podcast that this season is focusing on interviews with lesbians and queers doing amazing things in history. Love it! (More recommended podcasts here btw.)

๐Ÿ“บ I watched all three episodes of Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross, which I wrote about here (DW). Also been re-watching Midsomer Murders (the early seasons) which is nice to have running in the background while doing other stuff.

๐Ÿ“– I finished A Girl’s Guide to India (written about here / DW) on the bus from Chicago to Ann Arbor, and haven’t started a new book yet though I’ve been carrying my Kindle around from room to room in hopes of actually using it.

I HAVE been re-reading some favorite fanfics, including this amazing IT Chapter 2 longfic.

Food & Dining

๐Ÿ›’ Did a big grocery order because I had a $10 coupon AND a 30% off discount, so I got enough stuff to (I think) last me about a month, with some supplemental purchases throughout, for about $70 INCLUDING the tip. Was shopped and delivered by a very nice older lady who knew to look at expiration dates AND check for rotten fruit.

Bonus: Meijer grocery prices here in Michigan are fab, especially compared to Oregon/Illinois. Example: one dozen eggs under $3, even on the delivery app!

๐Ÿซ– This house has an electric kettle, so I can finally make tea again. (I hate microwaving water and I’m too lazy to boil it on the stove for one cup.)

I bought a huge box of PG Tips when I was catsitting in England earlier this year, and I think I have enough to last maybe through the end of August. Imported PG Tips prices are nuts (even excluding potential import fees), so I’ll have to start rifling through my hosts’ cabinets soon for replacement tea. ;D

Website Updates

Did lots of fun things on my website this week! Some highlights:

  • Started building a Wikipedia Pages page, to keep interesting articles
  • Joined a bunch of fanlistings, especially in the movies/tv shows section
  • Re-organized the recipes page, and added a biscuits recipe I found on a Clabber Girl baking powder container. I have a lot of other food package recipes to add this week!
  • Also changed the blog layout and made a header, so it looks a bit nicer/easier to read. And I added a thing at the bottom so people can email replies, if they want, or else do a regular comment or even a Webmention! Also set up ActivityPub so new entries are sent to the Fediverse, where of course people can respond (and responses are imported as comments, very cool!).

Looking Forward

This week I’m going to work on my website more (recipes, more fic recs), as well as join a few more webrings and site directories. And I’d like to email someone in response to THEIR post/website!

I’d also like to go out into town and visit some thrift stores. I don’t need new clothes (lol) but I’m casually looking for other stuff– something I can make into a laundry line, a backpack, perhaps a new travel purse, that sort of thing.

๐Ÿ“บ watched: solo traveling with tracee ellis ross (2025)

๐ŸŽฌ Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross. Tracee Ellis Ross is packing her bags and inviting audiences to join her solo trips to experience the joy of solo travel. ๐Ÿ”—

I kept seeing clips from TER’s TikTok and thought it looked cute, so I’m watching it! Three episodes, set in Morocco, Mexico and Spain. She’s very bougie and stylish, and self-aware about it, which is fun. Very obvious product placement, which I suppose is how it’s making money (besides the ads).

Watching on Roku Channel, currently halfway through the first episode.

Edit: OH! It’s her own beauty line. So she’s promo-ing (and probably paying for?) herself.

Edit 2: Episode 1 was fun, she went out to the market and the desert and did shopping, etc.

Episode 2, Mexico, was slightly forgettable because she spent it at a resort. It did look very relaxing.

Episode 3, Spain, was exciting because she got food poisoning (from airport food?) and was stuck indoors. The last scene was her having a great meal, where she then had a conversation with other female travelers at a restaurant who said basically “we saw you sitting on your own and thought that it wasn’t good for you.”

I suppose they’re the type of people who’ve never gone someone alone and would never even think of doing it– not even in their own home town. Tracee gently corrected them and explained that not only was she used to it, but she enjoys it. You could see they were full of disbelief, but also they acknowledged their daughters would travel solo happily.

It just makes me feel so sad for them. It’s not that I think everyone should be able to travel the world alone for months on end (like I do), necessarily, but to not even think that someone (a woman) could do have dinner alone and NOT be depressed or sad or lonely…? It’s just so out of their worldview, they were gobsmacked.

Overall more of a show if you’re interested in TER herself (she talks about her POV a lot, of course), or like watching people wearing great outfits in foreign locations. Not so much a “travel show” where you learn specific destination stuff.


๐Ÿ“บ 2025 Watched List

๐Ÿ”— morality police, flipphones, aging solo

Happy Friday! I’ve got another linkspam post for y’all, made of a combo of really old tabs and some new stuff. I’ll get down to a reasonable amount of tabs eventually…

First up, some major shenanigans are happening on itch.io, the indie game/book/zine platform. Basically, a Christian morality group (in Australia) put pressure on itch.io’s payment processors to block “NSFW” (including SFW LGBTQ content) from being listed on the website.

Creators have been shadowbanned (deindexed) and in some cases removed entirely from the platform, with no warning. The Transfeminine Review has an overview of what happened, including specific titles that got removed.

HTML Day 2025 is coming up on August 2nd, and there’s lots of in-person events happening around the world! If you’re interested in making something with HTML in a group setting, check it out!

A few zines that popped up on my radar recently: The FlipPhone Manifesto (in 6 colors!), Sick of Spotify?, and Birds of a Feather Destroy Flock Together.

Also here’s a bunch of interesting DIY zines from Iffy Books, including a Printable Diceware List for generating secure passphrases using 6-sided dice. They (Iffy Books) also host a Neo-Luddite book club each month which has an online version; the book club website has some great resources linked as well.

Marginalia Search’s Explore page is a fun way to find new websites. Here’s some I found: MapHistory.info, a cartography website maintained by a former Map Librarian (since 1996!); CopyFree.org, an alternative to copyright/copyleft licenses; CryptoParty.in, a community focused on digital privacy and not cryptocurrency.

How I Experience the Web Today highlights exactly the trap we’ve gotten into between trying to make money online and trying to use the internet for anything, well, useful.

This Terms and Conditions Game is a bit of a hellscape but also quite fun.

An interesting discussion on Ask MetaFilter about how to age successfully solo (minimal family support). Some suggestions are to be active in your community in a hobby or area you enjoy, stay physically active, and prep your living space with accessibility stuff.

Anybody up for a blogging challenge? 100 Day to Offload is one, with the goal to publish 100 posts on your personal blog in a year.


Need more stuff to read? I’ve compiled all previous linkspam posts here on my website, or you can explore the linkspam tag to find more.

๐Ÿ—จ๏ธ thrifting in the midwest

This past week has been very busy and very fun. I spent the weekend between catsits in Milwaukee and Chicago, mostly just wandering around looking at interesting buildings…and thrifting!!

Milwaukee (and Chicago) have AMAZING thrift stores! Even the Goodwills have great stuff for decent prices– compared to California Goodwill prices, anyway. And the selection is really good! I did quite a bit of shopping.

I’m currently working on building up a wardrobe of mostly-natural fibers (linen, silk, merino wool, a little cotton) because I find them most comfortable to travel in. I’m also determined to not buy any new things this year (except for stuff like toothpaste), so I really wanted to find thrifted items.

Unfortunately, most of the stores I’ve been to this year have been sparse on either fabric, size, or style choices, but in Milwaukee and Chicago I somehow hit the jackpot. I didn’t particularly look for name brands, but I’m familiar with the ones that do linen/silk/whatever so that’s what I ended up with more of. I made sure to stick with either 100% natural fabric, or blend with other natural fabric (so like linen/cotton and not linen/modal).

images in above graphic stolen from various online listings so I don’t have to drag my camera out, etc.

My haul:

  • Cashmere/silk blend pashmina
  • 3 sleeveless linen tops (Karen Kane, Jones & Co., J. Crew)
  • Pure J. Jill linen vest
  • Eileen Fisher silk top (with a weird collar that I don’t like, so I’ll be selling this)
  • Sanctuary linen t-shirt
  • Soft Surroundings cotton t-shirt (I thought I put this one back lmao)
  • Eileen Fisher silk long-sleeve shirt
  • Banana Republic merino wool cardigan
  • Eileen Fisher linen long cardigan
  • Christian Siriano linen/cotton blend trousers
  • Columbia windbreaker/raincoat
  • Coldwater Creek “denim” blazer (feels way lighter and foldable/packable than regular denim)
  • Keds sneakers (white)

I also got a book (travel memoir set in India) for $2!

Total cost: roughly $100. If I’d bought these things new I’d definitely have spent closer to $500-700, if not more! Yay, thrifting!

As a bonus, linen and silk pack down very small, so I think I’ll be able to fit more clothes into my suitcase than I currently have with my mostly-cotton/polyester clothes. And they’re lighter than cotton, too, so maybe I’ll ease up on some luggage weight as well!

I’m not 100% sure I’ll be bringing everything with me on my next leg, but I’m going to be wearing and testing these things this month to see how I like them. I may also be dying a few pieces as I don’t like the original color and luckily natural fibers dye well.

In other clothing news: I finally ditched the trail runners I’ve been struggling to wear comfortably for 2 years. I think they were meant more for actual running, and not just walking around a city for 5 hours. They constantly make my feet/legs hurt and I hated to wear them.

I’m currently just going around in my Teva sandals (super comfy) and once it hits winter temps again I’m tempted to just put on a pair of wool socks and call it good.

The new-thrifted shoes (white Keds) are fine for short walks but I got them mostly for style/photos– the trail runners make me look like I was going hiking up a mountain every day and tbh I’m just not that outdoorsy. The new shoes, plus the new clothes, should move my “look” closer to an urban setting, which is where I mostly travel anyway. I figure if and when I need actual hiking shoes, I can borrow some.

๐Ÿ“˜ reading wednesday

2025 Reading Log | 50/200 yearly goal (+9 from last update)

I drafted this last week and then forgot to post it! So, rapid-fire book thoughts:

First up is the Tarot Sequence books 1-3 by K.D. Edwards (titles: The Last Sun, The Hanged Man, The Hourglass Throne) which is a queer paranormal/fantasy series with romance and a bit of mystery. I really enjoyed these books, as they all have a sort of found family quality to them that I love. The main plot is basically the MC gaining personal power back after a traumatic event as a teen (murder/SA), with magical shenanigans. The author is currently writing the next few books and I look forward to picking them up once they get released.

Then I read two books in the Tithenai Chronicles by Foz Meadows (titles: A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and All the Hidden Paths), a queer fantasy romance which I LOVED! A whole lot! The first book is about an arranged marriage between two people from different cultures, so there’s fun cultural stuff to get through. Also political intrigue!

The second book (with the same people) has more political intrigue and also murder attempts, and while I enjoyed it as well I did think the personal developments sort of backslid from the first book just a bit. Also tbh I didn’t like side characters with the intense BDSM relationship. But overall I liked this series and I’m definitely going to be moving the other FM books up on my reading list.

Another banger: Yield Under Great Persuasion by Alexandra Rowland. Oh my GOD I loved this book! Another queer fantasy romance, because it’s my fav genre, with an interesting fantasy setting. But the focus is on the characters and not necessarily the magic/setting.

Several scenes made me laugh so hard I had to take a break to recover. I really liked how the MC and his love interest were stupid in different ways, and how they worked through their problems together (sometimes by just screaming at each other).

Then I have a few books I read on long bus rides between cities (I’m in Ann Arbor now, btw!). I read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott on the bus between St. Paul and Milwaukee. It’s a sort of how-to writing book but I was more interested in the memoir bits.

Lamott is a funny writer without going over-the-top, and I enjoyed this book enough that I’m interested in reading her other memoirs. I’d gotten this book from a Little Free Library so I dropped it off at a hostel bookshelf to pass it on to another reader.

Then on the bus between Chicago and Ann Arbor I finished A girls’ guide to India by Louise Wates, a fun book that’s a mix of practical (and detailed) advice about traveling in India and travel memoir. I have a slightly older version so it may be a bit outdated by now, but I still really enjoyed it and I’m sure many of the tips will be useful when I visit India myself.

I paid slightly too much for this at a used bookstore in Milwaukee so I’m keeping it for my collection and will be dropping it off at storage when I visit it in the fall.

Oh, and I also read The Miracle of Morning Pages by Julia Cameron which is a sort of supplement to the Artist’s Way, which I’m trying (and already failing) to do. It’s basically a Q&A about her morning pages idea and it’s a little hilarious because in the main book she says there’s no rules, and then in this book she makes a bunch of rules. *shrug emoji*