Category: media

reading log: enemy feminisms by sophie lewis

Book Info

Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation by Sophie Lewis (2025)

Genre: Nonfiction

LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/32671363/

Acquired from: Library (ebook)

Started reading: October 8, 2025

Finished reading: TBD

Reading Notes

0%: Started reading this to give my brain a little workout and so far it’s working! This is also the first ebook I’m doing a reading log for, and I haven’t decided how to mark down the annotation locations. Based on how my KOreader Sync plugin downloads things (eg without percentages), looks like it’s gonna be grouped under chapter titles.

Continue reading “reading log: enemy feminisms by sophie lewis”

weeknotes (sept. 28-oct. 4, 2025)

Life Updates

Another week gone by, and now it’s a new month! The end of the year is racing towards me and it’s very annoying(/stressful) to think about, so I’m trying not to.

Another overall mellow week where I mostly stayed home and read/wrote, but I did go to a clothing sale this weekend and got two pairs of shoes for $8: one pair suede booties, one pair corduroy sneakers.

I’m not entirely sure they actually go with my current wardrobe, which is very summer-focused. These shoes are definitely more fall/winter.

I think I can make it work if I get one new pair of dark-colored medium-weight pants (or skirt), so I’m going to keep my eyes open at the thrift stores. On the plus side, if they don’t work out, I spent so little on them I won’t feel bad for donating them if I have to.

🐈‍⬛ I still haven’t done the cat info post for this sit (apologies) BUT rest assured these cats are adorable and friendly and want to me near me without being annoying about it. Their food must have some kind of anti-hairball thing in it because I haven’t found one yet, despite one cat being long-haired.

Media Consumption

📺 Got a Peacock promo subscription for a month (for free) and while I haven’t started watching these YET, I do have them on my watchlist and am looking forward to watching them at some point:

  • Poker Face (TV)
  • The Paper (TV)
  • The Phoenician Scheme (movie)
  • Drive Away Dolls (movie)
  • Honey, Don’t (movie)

📖 Still deep into the Star Wars fanfics and ignoring everything else. ;D

Beloved recent fanfics: Why Not’s and How To’s by Trixree; And Back We Go by miyaji_08; The Force of My Love by Quarra; Second ‘Verse by LauraBWrites; Your Smile In Stone by ecarian

🎮 Started playing Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds on my 3DS, which I’ve played at least once before AND completed! It’s one of the easier Zelda games, I think, but the mechanic is really fun (you flatten out onto walls and go through cracks into another reality) so I’m enjoying it. It IS a little strange to go back to the simpler style Zelda games compared to, like, Breath of the Wild, but it’s still got a good story/gameplay.

Food & Dining

Tried a new-to-me brand of soy milk and it’s horrible, curdles weirdly in my coffee and has a sweetness to it that makes my mashed potatoes taste weird. Bleh.

Web Updates

Gave up on completing the change-over in a timely fashion and put the Docuwiki version of my site back up for now. I think the bots are still attacking, but I have it set up on Cloudflare and I blocked Brazil (where most of the bots were coming from apparently) so that should help.

Looking Forward

I’m currently working on a) setting up various emails tied to various personal domains and b) swapping over everything I want swapped from my Gmail to those new emails.

Some things are harder to change emails for than others AND one of my domains refuses to update its DNS records for some reason, so it’s annoying on both ends. However, I’m hoping to mostly have everything forwarding into my Fastmail account by the end of the week. And perhaps I can even close some of my lesser-used Gmail accounts!

watched: black barbie (2023)

🎬 Black Barbie: A Documentary: Directed by Lagueria Davis. With Lagueria Davis, Beulah Mae Mitchell, Maxine Waters, Shonda Rhimes. Tracing the origin of the first Black Barbie doll to the filmmaker’s aunt, who asked why Barbie couldn’t look like her, this documentary explores her quest for representation and diversity. 🔗

I really enjoyed this! It’s a combo of Barbie history and social history, with a focus on Black American history and culture (obviously).

Has interesting interviews with people directly involved in the creation of the original “Black Barbie,” people working on the then-current Barbie line, and kids who do or do not play with Barbies. I also liked that they talked about other Black dolls available before/after Barbie came out.

It’s a very personal documentary, too, as the director’s aunt was one of the creators. And there’s personal thoughts/statements about Barbie from the director threaded throughout the doc, which I also liked.

Recommended!

💗 Film’s website / All Watched posts

weeknotes (sept. 21-27, 2025)

Life Updates

This week has fairly flown by but honestly I’ve been spending most of my time petting the cats, wandering the neighborhood, reading fanfics, and doing a BIT of work.

It’s a very enjoyable life, but at the same time I wish I’d gotten more done than I had. Oh well! There’s always next week…

Media Consumption

📺 Tried watching several movies and nothing much caught my eye, so instead have been putting Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes on in the background. Some of the newer episodes– including the very newest ones that were audience-funded– are now available on the Shout TV streaming channel (or Tubi) which is interesting because there’s a whole new host!

📖 Currently halfway through a very fun Star Wars fanfic, The 212th Attack Battalion’s Guide to Staging Rescues by antigrav_vector and Quarra, and am very much enjoying it.

🎮 I have my (hacked) 3DS with me, and am currently playing a fan translation of Rocket Slime 3 (not as fun as Rocket Slime 2, but okay) and Animal Crossing: New Leaf (which will get its own page on my website eventually).

I also have Sanrio Characters Picross going, which is super cute– you get “stickers” for finishing puzzles and can use them to decorate the backgrounds IN the game.

I’m planning on writing a post later about my 3DS because a) I decorated it and want to show off, and b) there’s some fun homebrew stuff which came out recently and has made the 3DS community more active than it was a few years ago when I first jailbroke it.

Food & Dining

Went to the farmer’s market and splurged on a few things, including a packet of “Reaper” flavored cheese from a local dairy farm and a $10 loaf of jalapeno cheddar sourdough (yum).

Also stopped by a coffee truck and got a honeybun latte, which was good but perhaps just a little overpriced ($7+ yikes).

Web Updates

I need to get back into the habit of posting again! I have so many drafts, but very little energy to finish them. Until then:

Looking Forward

Next week is several fun local events, including a flea market. I’m also planning to go to a thrift store and perhaps a Little Free Library. And of course, reading lots of fanfic (and maybe finishing a book or two).

reading log: a trip of one’s own by kate wills

Book Info

A Trip of One’s Own: Hope, Heartbreak, and Why Traveling Solo Could Change Your Life by Kate Wills (2021)

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Travel

LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/28155352/

Acquired from: Little Free Library, [undisclosed location], USA

Started reading: September 19, 2025

Finished reading: October 28, 2025

Bookmark: Books, Inc. “Where the Bay Goes for Books” (came with book)

Review

I feel like she sold the idea of this book as her following historical solo female traveler’s travel routes and then it turned into a memoir about how she messed up her life and kept making probably bad choices and then somehow it turned out okay. Every other chapter is a “how to” for other solo female travelers and mostly they’re pretty good, but it’s weird to include those in a personal memoir type book when they seem like they’d better fit in a guide type book. I did enjoy reading about all the different historical women– many of whom I haven’t heard of before, and whose books I can’t find online despite them being in the public domain.

Notes

Page 0: I already travel solo extensively (in fact, full-time for years) but this seems more like a travel memoir than a how-to so I think it’ll be good to read.

She’s following the travels of one of the early travel writers, Egeria, who went on a pilgrimage which means visiting Israel and other nearby sites. In fact this author starts right off in Israel, just fyi.

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📝 weeknotes (aug 24-30, 2025)

Is it still a weeknotes if I write massive amounts of text? All the other ones I’ve seen are shorter and more list-heavy. Well, whatever.

📩 Writing this from Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, with one kitty sleeping behind me on a heated blanket and the other two dozing in the homeowner’s bedroom (one on the bed, one under it). I have the back door open and it’s great weather, mid-60s and sunny– though my writing desk corner is shaded most of the day, which makes it easier to see the screen. I can see the garden from my desk, and so far have chased off the groundhog twice from breaking in and stealing tomatoes. I have on a new-to-me merino wool sweater on that I got from a thrift store a few weeks ago for like $7, which is my favorite shade of purple: a deep wine color. It’s soft and doesn’t itch like most wool things. The WALL-E soundtrack is playing as background noise.

Life Updates

The first half of the week was spent in a semi-sick state– not actually ill, but just bleh feeling, compounded by too much computer use tbh. I finally forced myself outside on Thursday and went walking around, and found a MASSIVE burdock just at the edge of someone’s yard which inexplicably cheered me up.

🐈‍⬛ The cats have been total sweeties this week (despite one day when a cat threw up his breakfast in 3 places, and another one left a poo just outside the litter box) and keep sitting on my lap/near me– compared to where we were at the start of this sit, when they were so nervous they hid under a bet all day, this is great! But of course I’m leaving in a few days and now all I can think about is how much I’ll miss them. 🙁

The only thing that solves that problem is going to another catsit, and luckily I have another one lined up right after this one.

Continue reading “📝 weeknotes (aug 24-30, 2025)”

📝 weeknotes (aug 17-23, 2025)

Life Updates

Overall I feel really good! There’s the creeping sense of dread re: finances which pops up every month or so, but otherwise I’m excited for the next few months of travel/catsitting.

I think it’s helped that I’ve been regularly going outside and walking for ~45 minutes every day. I’m really bad about doing that normally, but this neighborhood is good for walking and has enough interesting things to look at that I don’t feel bored. My Health app even says my step count is about double what it was last month!

I’ve also been venturing into some of Ann Arbor’s nature preserves, which are much hillier than I expected. Very beautiful trees, though! And usually not too crowded, so it’s peaceful.

Continue reading “📝 weeknotes (aug 17-23, 2025)”

📺 watched: mary heilmann: waves, roads and hallucinations (2023)

🎬 Mary Heilmann: Waves, Roads and Hallucinations: Directed by Matt Creed. A look at the life and influential work of pioneering abstract painter Mary Heilmann, who emerged from the minimalist and Beat Generation scenes in California. 🔗

I’d never heard of Heilmann before and her work doesn’t look familiar to me, but I still enjoyed this documentary because she’s such an interesting person.

It’s mostly direct interviews with her, with some tours of her studio and an exhibit she was doing at the time. They did a good job of going over her work from the 1960s onward, and sprinkling in bits about her life. She’s not afraid to say personal/emotional stuff and it doesn’t feel trite.

Early on she talked about how, when you think about being an artist, you never think of the business side of it. And she said nowadays art is so commodified, if you do it professionally you basically HAVE to sell out to actually make any money. People talk more about what a piece is worth than anything else, and art collectors are thinking of investments rather than pure artistic merit.

I also liked how she said that she did art to have an identity– refreshing!

A final good thing she says is: you have to find the good things about the new art world to be satisfied with your place in it. Smart!

💟 Her website / Public collections list (Wikipedia)