![\"me](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260502_165302856_HDR-scaled-e1778383257639-700x709.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"headshot](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260502_164511987_HDR-scaled-e1778382660999-700x868.jpg\")
<\/a>I had Kirk take some photos of me, and one of them caught me hitting the “emotions are offline” face. I think it’s hilarious on its own but it’s even funnier when you realize it’s a case of life imitating art. I’m really making the same face as Sta\u0144czyk in the Jan Matejko painting<\/a>. Universal jester experience: getting off stage and shutting down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the festivities, Kirk and I did some tourist activities since he had not been to Seattle. Week took a lap around Pike Place Market where a woman who didn’t speak much English asked me where the original Starbucks was (thrilling to complete the corporate pilgrimage, I guess). We went to the top of the Space Needle! We also visited the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum<\/a>, which is full of surreal glasswork. It was very cool! <\/p>\n\n\n\n After Seattle, we headed to Orcas Island<\/a>, which is a lovely place. There wasn’t a lot to do; we were there on a Tuesday, which, it turns out, is the day when most shops are closed after being open for tourists all weekend. That is okay because I spent my free time reading on the balcony of our hotel room (view pictured below) and becoming best friends with the hotel cat, Mr. Lily. My friend Shannon lives on Orcas, and we got to visit a little with her and her family, which was also lovely! There’s nothing like visiting friends to remind you that the whole meaning of life is to hang out with your friends and eat food and talk about stuff (and pet cats). <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Saturday after we got home, Lemon and I hosted another of our themed food parties. It’s my birthday on Monday, so I wanted to do a summer reading pizza party, inspired by the nostalgic joy of reading books to get a free personal pizza. We invited everyone to bring a pizza topping and we all made our own little pizzas. A surprise hit topping: BEANS. Yes, I will always find a way to include beans at the potluck. I was surprised that so many people were willing to toss some cassoulet beans on their pizza. I was also surprised that no one dared to try cashews. It’s a good pizza topping and I will die on this hill!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also asked everyone to bring a wrapped book and then had people pick which book they wanted based on a few details, excluding the title and author. I hope everyone goes home and reads a good book and eats more pizza. This, too, is the meaning of life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rachel Carson and the Power of Queer Love<\/a> by Lida Maxwell focuses on the relationship between Carson, best known for authoring the 1962 environmental work Silent Spring<\/a> (which I read in 2019 but apparently didn’t bother to write about on here!), and Dorothy Freeman. It feels like a disservice to say Carson and Freeman were “friends” (it sounds a little “they were roommates”), but they really weren’t roommates; Freeman was married to a man and we don’t exactly know the extent of the relationship between her and Carson. However, in the excerpts from their letters that Maxwell shares, the two are constantly calling each other “darling,” writing at length about how much they love, support, and miss each other, and talking about the “wonder” of their friendship. Much of what we know about Carson and Freeman’s relationship comes from an archive of their prolific correspondence, however, Freeman ended up burning a large portion of the letters she wrote after Carson’s death because she was afraid of what someone might think about the two of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maxwell makes the case that Silent Spring<\/em> was inspired by Carson’s love of nature and sharing that love with Freeman. Much of the commentary on Carson’s work centers on the fear of climate change as a motivator for environmental action, but Maxwell argues “that a vibrant multispecies world is necessary to sustain and hold onto because it allows us to become truer selves.” That is, through queer love\u2014as opposed to heteronormative love, which “encourages us to turn to intimate life rather than politics for solace for our unhappiness”\u2014we can open ourselves to appreciating the world because it brings us joy, rather than calling for sustaining the planet for the sake of our children or out of fear that we will lose access to modern conveniences. Maxwell writes that queer love “is a poetic activity of creating a new worldly horizon of possibility, in conjunction with other people … and living creatures.” By becoming close with Freeman, Carson is able to open herself to the possibility of queer love, developing a will to write politically about the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, one of the thoughtful choices Maxwell makes in this book is in the term “nonhuman nature.” Carson and Freeman’s relationship revolves around their experiences in nature\u2014listening to the song of the veeries<\/a>, watching the stars from the beach\u2014that inspire feelings of wonder in themselves and for each other. Humans are a part of the natural world but we normally think of ourselves as a thing apart. By specifically naming “nonhuman nature,” we are forced to consider the fact that nature includes humanity too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Lito invites me to a group read, I always say yes\u2014that’s how I ended up reading Don Quijote<\/em> last year<\/a>. This year, he said he wanted to start reading Marcel Proust’s seven-volume series, In Search of Lost Time<\/em>. I’ve gone into this knowing virtually nothing about Proust or his work except from what Steve Carell’s character had to say about him in the movie Little Miss Sunshine<\/a>. I’m not sure I would have decided to read this on my own but it’s been enjoyable reading with friends (as doing most things is!) and discussing it and joking in the group chat (most of the posts are like “this is gay\/autistic [affectionate]). The book is dense, so we’re reading it a little at a time, and we just finished the first volume, Swann’s Way<\/a>. Proust has a reputation for being wordy and that’s certainly well-founded. He also digs up so many specific-ass words (I have sympathy for the translator); rarely have I looked so many words up while reading in my native language. It took a certain amount of patience to read this book because, when you think about it, you realize that Proust’s narrator says something like “one night I couldn’t fall asleep,” and next thing you know you’re 80 pages deep into what is ultimately a charming story about the narrator’s childhood and his obsession with getting a little kiss from mama before going to bed. It’s good, but when I stop to think about it, it’s like, what are we doing here? All this because you couldn’t fall asleep? Still, the prose does carry you away and I found it a generally compelling read (but maybe it’s just that there are very few natural stopping points?). We did get rather sick of the middle section of the book, which focused on Swann’s liaisons with a courtesan. His insufferable behavior led me to send messages to the chat like “Swann is really displaying unprecedented levels of incel thinking” and “Swann needs to touch grass and get a fucking life.” Anyway, I can’t wait to see where all that goes. <\/p>\n\n\n The Summer Queen<\/a> is the third book in Joan D. Vinge’s Snow Queen Cycle. When I wrote about the previous book<\/a>, World’s End<\/em>, I kind of didn’t get the point of focusing on the character of BZ Gundhalinu, but apparently I did not see the greater vision. In The Summer Queen<\/em>, we see the fruits of Gundhalinu’s work in World’s End<\/em>, with the development of a plasma drive for faster-than-light space travel. He returns to Tiamat and reunites with Moon nearly 20 years after she has become queen and they link up with a third character, Reed Kullervo, to save the universe or whatever. I don’t actually have a lot to say about this book beyond that! I thought it was good overall but so far, the original Snow Queen<\/em> has been the strongest book of the series. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another book I would not have picked up on my own, but from a wildly different genre is Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/a>, a series by Matt Dinniman. Kirk has been enjoying the audio books and suggested we listen to them on our drive, and they are actually very amusing. The books are written as though the main character is playing a video game, complete with using skills, collecting magical items, and, yes, dungeon crawling. I think listening to the audiobook is a much more fun experience than reading it because the voice actor does such a good job bringing the characters to life and imbuing the in-game descriptions with a perspective (the game AI is sassy). We listened to two and a half books in the car (book two: Carl’s Doomsday Scenario<\/a>) and then I downloaded the ebook from the library so I could finish book three (The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook<\/a>) because I had become invested. I think the books are effective for their genre of “POV: guy playing a real-life video game” but I don’t think the prose is especially compelling, though I suppose it doesn’t have to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The story itself is a post-apocalyptic scenario in which an alien corporation flattens everything on Earth without warning to take its resources, and the survivors enter into a real-life game where they attempt to make their way through multiple levels of dungeon crawling, which is televised to the wider universe for fun and profit. The titular Carl is the focus of the story. He enters the dungeon with his ex-girlfriend’s prize-winning cat, Princess Donut, who soon gains sentience and can talk and cast spells and shit. We all love Princess Donut. Carl is supposed to be something of an everyman: he’s in the coast guard, he recently split with his girlfriend who cheated on him, and he’s just trying to live his life and maybe work through his unresolved childhood trauma. Unfortunately, now he’s in a fucking dungeon TV program trying to keep himself and Donut alive by assembling contraptions and blowing all kinds of shit up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While I get the impression that Dinniman wrote the books after perhaps developing a Dungeons and Dragons game in excessive detail, which is not especially interesting to me, I think what’s compelling here is that Carl is actually much more than an everyman. If the men on the internet are anything to go by (I know this is not a representative cross-section; don’t “not all men” me), many men don’t seem to give a shit about much beyond themselves. Yet, Carl, whose private mantra becomes “you will not break me,” consistently goes out of his way to help other crawlers and even non-player characters (NPCs). In fact, I would argue that the point (or maybe just a <\/em>point) of Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/em> is developing class solidarity. All the Earth’s remaining humans (and some animals, like Princess Donut), are being unwillingly compelled to participate in a death match spectacle. Carl also identifies that the NPCs are people too (albeit alien people and creatures) who are here against their will and being brutalized and having their memories replaced to make them dance for the viewers. Instead of taking the producers’ bait and going with an “every man for himself” philosophy, he repeatedly finds ways to forge bonds and build solidarity with other players and puts himself in mortal danger to help other people survive. Although this book may not feature the most florid prose or innovative concepts (Star Trek<\/em> and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em> come to mind as direct inspiration), it feels good to see a man (a man in particular!) actually give a shit about the people and cats around him. There are about eight books in the series so far, so you can expect to hear more about this subject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I do love picking up treasures when traveling. Kirk and I had been kicking around the idea of getting new dishes to have a bigger set and to have something a little more festive. We went to Orcas Island Pottery<\/a> to see if anything sparked joy and, indeed, joy was sparked. We are now the proud owners of some quite cool new plates and bowls and we have an exciting souvenir. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On our trip home from Seattle, we spent a night in Portland that included an outing to Powell’s Books. My dad sent me an early birthday gift of a Powell’s giftcard, so I spent a good hour or two going ham in there and picking up a bunch of books. Kirk dutifully followed me around and carried my basket. What a guy. Between this and my recent trip to Beers Books<\/a> to sell some of my old books and then immediately spend my store credit, I am extremely well-stocked on reading material. Time to lock in and earn that summer reading pizza, haha!<\/p>\n\n\n\n After partying a little too heartily to celebrate Kira’s 40th, my knee was feeling fucked up. I ended up using my cane a lot while we were out sightseeing, and I was very glad I brought it, but it felt weird to be using it in public for the first time. I know the point of a mobility aid is to keep oneself mobile and to keep from getting worse, so I was very glad I had it. I would not have been able to manage any sightseeing without it. It did feel weird though, as if everyone knows I’m new to the game and must be judging me. I know that’s not true and, in fact, people were extra nice to me, but it was bizarre to temporarily become visibly disabled (and I’m sure there are more to come, alas). <\/p>\n\n\n You know I love beans and soup, so I tried a new-to-me bean soup: borlotti bean and barley (recipe from Rancho Gordo). I think I used bayo beans for this despite it having borlotti (aka cranberry bean) in the title. We had that with big and bubbly foccacia<\/a> and I was forced to ask myself why I’m not making foccacia more often. I revisited one of my favorite recipes: chicken and dumplings<\/a>, which is always tasty. I do cheat this recipe a little bit though by cooking chicken in the slow cooker and shredding it instead of doing all this searing and whatever. I don’t have that kind of energy. I did a variation on a cookie bar from Snacking Bakes<\/a>. I’ve made this recipe before but instead of chocolate chips, nuts, and coconut as the recipe calls for, I loaded it with a ton of mini peanut butter cups simply because I could. Finally, I tried this alfredo-ish broccoli and chickpeas<\/a>, which was very tasty and fairly simple too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Fritz was extremely displeased that we left him for a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hello, friends and enemies. Last week, Kirk and I took a little vacation to the Pacific Northwest. My beloved friend Kira was celebrating her 40th birthday and having a big party. She asked me to host a roast of her. I had a lot of fun putting my jokes together but I did somewhat feel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[248],"tags":[462,365,367,284,245,247,249,402,464,370,409,310,329],"class_list":["post-5286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-update","tag-462","tag-april","tag-art","tag-baking","tag-books","tag-cats","tag-cooking","tag-corporeal-form","tag-jestering","tag-may","tag-mr-fritz","tag-pizza","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3ni6N-1ng","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5286"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5356,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5286\/revisions\/5356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"me,](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260502_200242904_HDR-scaled-e1778383528342-700x956.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"the](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jan_Matejko_Stanczyk-700x521.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Seattle](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260502_132327958_HDR-scaled-e1778382556336-700x368.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Kirk](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260503_134619162_HDR-scaled-e1778383784163-700x464.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"View](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260503_142939471_HDR-scaled-e1778383901691-700x1107.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Mr.](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260505_125506152_HDR-scaled-e1778384353899-700x841.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"stunning](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260504_164124820_HDR-scaled-e1778384178511-700x540.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Kirk](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260505_193641698_HDR-700x525.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"a](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260509_140611375_HDR-scaled-e1778385021106-700x527.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"brown-paper](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260509_143933454_HDR-scaled-e1778385095617-700x898.jpg\")
<\/a>Books and Other Words<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Power of Queer Love<\/h3>\n\n\n
![\"hardback](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260428_171852715_HDR-scaled-e1778382341551-700x867.jpg\")
<\/a>Searching for Lost Time<\/h3>\n\n\n
![\"book](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260429_090406920_HDR-scaled-e1778382427338-700x771.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"internet](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gay-to-go-for-a-walk-700x225.png\")
<\/a>The Summer Queen<\/h3>\n\n\n
![\"book](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260504_171904025_HDR-scaled-e1778384037677-700x766.jpg\")
<\/a>Dungeon Crawler Carl<\/h3>\n\n\n
![\"screenshot](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/dungeon-crawler-carl-covers.png\")
<\/a>Meanwhile, on the internet<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n
![\"image](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/you-cant-steal-a-recipe-700x394.png\")
<\/a>Rampant Consumerism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Plates](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260508_105046613_HDR-scaled-e1778384925786-700x573.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"A](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260507_190914509_HDR-scaled-e1778384749614-700x731.jpg\")
<\/a>Corporeal Form<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"tweet](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/wearing-a-hat.png\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nKitchen Witchery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"a](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260419_174234999_HDR-scaled-e1778381563809-700x633.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"a](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260419_191541819_HDR-scaled-e1778381745945-700x553.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"a](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260424_140739420_HDR-scaled-e1778382042252-700x548.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"a](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260424_173646538_HDR-scaled-e1778382176667-700x606.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"a](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260428_200800383_HDR-scaled-e1778382264955-700x512.jpg\")
<\/a>Cat Therapy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Fritz](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260508_114214747_HDR-scaled-e1778385165510-700x455.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Fritz](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260422_205607203_HDR-scaled-e1778381809924-700x496.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Fritz](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260419_172745519_HDR-scaled-e1778381386530-700x504.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Fritz](\"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_20260423_075403420_HDR-scaled-e1778381863377-700x854.jpg\")
<\/a>