I figured out how to turn comments on, which is fun.

I play a very stupid merging game on my tablet. You know, the kind where you are bombarded with ads for power ups between combining random objects to make new random objects to fulfil orders from a group of characters who have incredibly skippable cut scenes. It's very stupid but I enjoy seeing how far I can get while never giving them a dime. We all have our flaws and mine involve wasting time on scum mobile games.

Like any freemium game, there are a bunch of side minigames--more ways to attempt to wring money from a stone or however that goes. A lot of them involve teaming up with other players, who have various names and icons, the fanciness of which indicates their wins and if they've bought some special deal. Overall, the plainer the icon, the more casual they are about the game. I have a very plain icon.

Anyway, at some point like a year ago I got paired up with somebody who had the same default player icon as me, with the same kind of nothing username. We might have completed a level together, I can't remember. But over time we've teamed up again and again, pairing our mediocre play to win our silly little bonuses. There's a card collecting aspect to the game (there is always a card collecting aspect) and you can trade with other players to try and get the cards you're missing. Only, there is no messaging within the game, so you can't just say "I need this card with the turtle, if you have it". I suppose the whole thing works better if you've made the madman's choice of pairing the game to your Facebook.

Without this option, this random stranger and I will indicate the cards we need by sending the cards around it in the set. It's nowhere near a perfect science, but it works sometimes. It's wild that it works. It's wild and wonderful that there is a person I will never know who contemplates what cards to send this rando they play a trash game with, so that they can complete a set and win a pointless but pleasing level.

I've spent a lot of my life doing things like mail art swaps, or writing fanfic for strangers--as many lifelong friends and family I've made online I've also made in acquaintances I'll never meet or know beyond what they like to read (incredibly difficult to find in the states Australian YA, often). But, it's not just online.

When I commuted, there was a while I spent 24 hours a week (a whole day!) just on transit to and from work. You see a lot of the same people, other tired commuters, when you do long-haul commuting and there's something special about it. Folks you'll never talk to because you are so worn out, but you worry when you don't see them, or you hold the door for them when it's packed. Sometimes you do end up having a whole conversation with someone and then their schedule changes and you never see them again.

This post is great, btw, the reblog I'm linking from has a bunch of beautiful little moments with strangers.

Image description: A post from batmanisagatewaydrug on Tumblr: "and what if I told you guys that virtually everyone you ever meet will turn out to be really interesting if you give them a chance." End ID.

This is related, I swear, but I was reminded recently of one of my favourite things, a stylus from almost two thousand years ago that is inscribed with "I went to Rome and all I got you was this stylus." It's so stupid, I love it. I think a lot of times it's difficult to think of people you don't know, can't know because they're millennia-gone, as individuals full of their own silly quirks (and bad taste) and not some larger mythic concept. It's a hard thing to do with people you don't know in the day-to-day! But, I do think it comes easier with practise.

And I'm not saying that the person going an unsafe speed in the parking lot is justified and not an asshole, because everyone is a unique mass of beautiful stories. What I'm saying is when you were weaving through the other shoppers to get your fruit-flavoured water, did you see the teens who had set up a their phones to film themselves telling a joke? When I bought Girl Scout cookies a couple of weeks ago I automatically faced the bills (or whatever you call it when they all point the same way, like you do when giving change) before handing them over and I saw the Scout's mom quirk a smile of reflex recognition.

People watching is a skill like birdwatching, like anything-watching. It's easy to forget, I think, how thick with stuff the world is. Bugs on the sidewalk, the edge of a lawn longer than the rest like somebody did a bad job shaving, birds sipping sprinkler run-off and tilting their little heads back to smack the drink down like they're tasting wine. You miss 100% of the lizards you don't look for. And you may never say hello to each other, but there's comfort in seeing the same older lady walking her beautiful collie puppy every time you do your nightly walks. The thing to remember is, she (and her puppy) see you too, we're all somebody's bird to be watched.

I recently read two books in a row that had the same thing going on. Not the story or the style or anything, but both were awesome rides the full way through, doing some neat things with how a story is shaped, but then the ending didn't hit for me as solidly as I needed it to. Which does not! Mean they're not worth reading. It was actually really interesting to interrogate myself on why the endings didn't work for me the way I wanted. Maybe (probably) they'll do better for you. Links go to the Storygraph entries for each title, a great place to check out content warnings and find ways to read them.

Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor, ooh, I love a book where the story is interspersed between interviews or other sort of oral-history framings. There's a lot of layers in this story that unfold to thr surprising centre. It's about love and family and flaws and also robots.

Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward is the kind of meta-meta fiction that makes you want to draw a diagram or design a syllabus around it. Part of it feels a piss-take on the bildungsroman, or books like Catcher in the Rye, while also being in conversation with a half dozen other things (many of which will feel very familiar to anyone who was a horror movie fan in the late '90s). This is one of those books where you don't really like any of the characters and that's fine, actually.

Some small moments to share:

Image description: A photograph of a dandelion puff, held close and in focus, so the background of a sidewalk on an overpass is blurry. End ID.

Image description: A photograph of a hole in a heavily painted concrete wall, filled with moss and a surprisingly large fern. End ID.

Image description: A photograph of clusters of waxy white orange blossoms in various stages of bloom, backed by glossy green leaves. The tree and a bit of yard sit out of focus behind them. End ID.

Some cool links that all sort of share a "look at how cool this old shit is" vibe, the beauty of archival research.

• I've barely dipped my toe into the Older LGBT science fiction database, but it's a really interesting project that leverages Notion to make pretty thorough entries for an impressive amount of titles.
• Ahh, any sci-fi or fantasy story that brings fibre arts into it will have me by the heart but I particularly like the trick of This Stitch, This Time by Anna Martino over at Clarkesworld. A little dark, a little angry, but what needlework.
• A "legendary" golden fabric--sea silk--was replicated by Korean scientists who used a regular ol' farming clam (that had the same kind of threads as the classically used clam). Oh, right: because the fibre is made from the stuff the clams use to attach themselves to rocks! Amazing. Check out the writeup on ScienceDaily.
• Speaking of fancy, I love playing cards so much even though I don't play card games much any more. They're such satisfying objects, and that's partly due to court cards. Thr very cool World of Playing Cards site has a nice history of court cards among their blogposts.

If you want to learn more about ICE Rapid Response networks and see what is available in your state, ImportaMi has a good list of places for you to learn more, donate, or sign up for.

With the recent news out of Kansas, The Trans Continental Pipeline and the work they do is more important than ever and in increased need of funds.

If you've thought of donating eSims, this guide was very helpful, and Crips for eSims for Gaza is a good option if you can't easily manage topping them up. There are also more traditional donation targets like the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, UNRWA, and Doctors Without Borders. If you prefer giving directly to families, Gaza Funds is a nice resource that facilitates finding campaigns.