JMA-PSOS

This is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from torc87. It also fills the "Escape" square in my 4-1-26 card for the Flower Fest Bingo. This poem belongs to the series One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis.

( Read more... )

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention. Please keep an eye on this space as I am still writing.

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "I am SO done with this!" I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for activists, rebels, Women Who Run with the Saberteeth, explorers, traitors, exes, people who escape domestic violence, refugees, runaway youth, escaped slaves or other captives, housemates, siblings, parents, teachers, clergy, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, alien or fantasy species, failure analysts, ethicists, stray or feral animals, other people who get into untenable situations, protesting, planning, throwing in the towel, escaping, running like someone left the gate open, adventuring, hitchhiking, quitting school, divorcing, disowning, betraying, teaching, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, trails, sailing ships, campervans or RVs, distant lands, the forest primeval, prehistory, liminal zones, schools, homeless shelters, hotels, churches, sharehouses, campfires, laboratories, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, stores, farmer's markets, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where the intolerable happens, unhappy relationships, protest rallies, slavery or captivity, locks or chains, travel mishaps, sudden surprises, the buck stops here, trial and error, weird food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, Get a Life Program, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.


EDIT 4/7/26 -- alatefeline offers this challenge:
My /personal/ challenge, for myself and others, based on a recent conversation:
Think of the weirdest science fiction you're read (or watched, played etc) recently.
(Other speculative forms also welcome).
Now think of something WEIRDER.
Now go prompt /that./


Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Flower Fest Bingo Card 4-1-26

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One is developing its own neurovariant culture after rebelling against the Galactic Arms.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past.

A Conflagration of Dragons has the Six Races (plus the dragons) who all have different cultures and climates. This often poses challenges for the refugees.

Coracle Shores is about leaving a distressed world for somewhere better.

The Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find enough resources to survive, when former cities are unsafe.

The Moon Door explores a women's chronic pain group and lycanthropy.

Not Quite Kansas deals with demons and angels, also characters dumped out of their original worlds.

The Ocracies has a wide variety of countries crammed together, each with a totally different government. Sometimes people leave their homeland to find something they like better.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis follows Shaeth as he works on becoming the God of Drunks after quitting as the God of Evili.

Path of the Paladins includes a few characters who have walked away from unbearable situations, like Johan.

Peculiar Obligations combines Quakers and pirates, the latter of whom are well versed in weighing anchor.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. The supervillains are the most likely to cut and run from a bad situation.

Schrodinger's Heroes has a lot of situations that people want to get away from including Chris avoiding some of his relatives, Morgan moving to a new dimension, and dimensions that just suck for everyone.

The Wandering is a series about fantasy time travel where people loop back within their own lifespan.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

( Read more... )

Artemis 2 lunar flyby is Monday. What to expect

After launching on April 1, 2026, the Artemis 2 mission has already passed the halfway point between the Earth and moon. It will enter the sphere of the moon’s gravitational influence — where lunar gravity begins affecting it more than earthly gravity — today, Sunday, April 5, 2026, aka Flight Day 5. Tomorrow, April 6, Flight Day 6, the 4-person crew will perform its closest flyby to the moon. The brave astronauts will pass approximately 4,600 miles (7,400 km) above the lunar surface.

During this loop around the moon’s far side, the astronauts will break the all-time human distance record from Earth. The crew of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission set this record at 00:21 UTC on April 15, 1970 (7:21 p.m. EST on April 14, 1970). At that moment, Apollo 13 was approximately 248,655 miles (400,171 km) away from Earth’s surface.


Exciting!

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations


~2000 years later, this is still 100% timely. That's a depressing observation regarding humanity's potential for progress ... or lack thereof.

Today is sunny and cool.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen much activity yet.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I started raking part of the orchard so I can sow grass seed there.

I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I did more raking in the orchard. There are a lot of dead branches that need to be removed.

I've seen the turkey vulture overhead again. I glimpsed a metallic green beetle, likely a tiger beetle.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I sowed grass seed over the raked portion of the orchard.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I started setting up where to plant the American plum.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I planted the American plum in the savanna. I mulched around it.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I planted the spicebush in the savanna and mulched around it. This concludes the batch of seedlings from Prairie Moon.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I did some grass trimming in the savanna.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I sowed a scarlet runner bean under the large redbud tree in the savanna. This year I'm experimenting with growing legumes as living fertilizer.

The honeybees are very active, with a constant stream going in and out of the be tree.

I've seen a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 4/6/26 -- I gathered a trolley of branches from the orchard and dumped them in the firepit.

I am done for the night.

Baby stars 'sneeze' out giant rings of gas during formation

Researchers have found that a baby star in the Taurus constellation, a nearby star-forming region, is surrounded by a warm ring about 93 billion miles across – a structure earlier observations had not revealed.

The discovery recasts the first stages of star growth as a process that can fling magnetic energy into the surrounding cloud, reshaping the gas a young star must live inside.


This is so adorable. :D

Today is sunny and cool.  It rained again yesterday.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 4/5/26 -- I planted a gold curly willow in the savanna.

EDIT 4/5/26 -- I planted a red curly willow in the savanna.

I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a male cardinal, and a fox squirrel.  I also spotted a turkey vulture soaring low over the yard, just above the treetops.  :D

The honeybees are to-ing and fro-ing at the bee tree. \o/

EDIT 4/5/26 -- I planted the last of the gold curly willow in the savanna.

EDIT 4/5/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 4/5/26 -- I sowed 'Lovely Lettuce Mesclun Blend' lettuce, 'Choko Baby' pak choi, and 'Thumbelina Baby Ball' carrots in troughs on the new picnic table garden.

EDIT 4/5/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

Today is cloudy, cool, breezy, and wet.  It rained again this morning.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 4/4/26 -- I've seen a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 4/4/26 -- I raked a section of the east path, so that I can sow grass seed later.

EDIT 4/4/26 -- I started sowing grass and clover seed along the east path.

EDIT 4/4/26 -- I finished sowing grass and clover seed along the east path.  But the new grass seed is bad, so covered in chemicals that it's blue.  >_<  Local selection is poor, but we'll have to try to find something different when this runs out.

EDIT 4/4/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 4/4/26 -- I checked the new picnic table garden.  Peas, carrots, bok choy, and lettuce are sprouting.  I replaced a few peas that didn't show up.

I am done for the night.

"Why people think I'm weird!"

Hey remember this? "Don't forget to like and subscribe and follow"

I wanted to share some thoughts on the current state of
social media and human connection.


People think I'm weird because I am weird -- that is, I differ in many ways from conventional people, and much of that is obvious very quickly. I was the kid who could read before kindergarten, learned anatomy by dissecting roadkill, talked about violent historical mayhem over the dinner table and didn't care about fashion, famous people, or other mundane trivia. Many of the things I like are rare interests; most common interests bore me. However, I learned to say "If you're normal, I'm glad I'm not" very young and this has remained true. It's the normies who are wrecking the world, not the weirdos.

( Read more... )