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A minor but big change

I've had carrots, celery, cherry or grape tomatoes, and a pickle with almost every breakfast and lunch for years. Not sure exactly when I started, but shortly after we moved here in 2014 I started keeping crudite around a lot. There used to be more variety, with a single batch having things like carrots, zucchini, three colors of peppers, and cucumber. As is often the case, it got simpler as time went on. Even the carrots themselves got simpler. I used to buy multicolor ones and peel them myself and cut them up, then I switched to baby carrots, and finally petite cut whenever I could find them.

But today's the first Monday shopping trip in ages that I didn't buy any carrots or celery because they just haven't been good lately. No way I'm giving up the tomatoes and pickles, they're just so consistently good. My favorites are red grape tomatoes and Grillo's fresh dill pickles, by the way. I looked around at both stores I went to this morning and no other vegetables were jumping out at me. A big part of why carrots and celery became the default is they can last a week packed in water, but I wouldn't do that with other vegetables and would probably have to do a smaller batch twice a week.

I might do fruit instead. An apple tastes fantastic with a pickle and a banana is always satisfying, and neither needs any prep so they're good to always have around. In fact, we usually do! And there's really no fighting over bananas because I prefer mine much less ripe than Garrett does.

A side effect of all this is that I'm really craving other vegetable dishes. I'd love to make our old favorite fennel salad or cook up a side of onions, zucchini, and squash. I guess spending too much time eating the most boring vegetables possible was a bad idea!

Icon origins

I haven't uploaded any new user icons on LJ or DW in ages but Ed Cook just sent me a screenshot I had to use.

Look! I remembered to post before December started this year!

Hello, friends! It's about to be December again, and you know what that means: the fact I am posting this actually before December 1 means

karzilla reminded me about the existence of linear time again. Wait, no -- well, yes, but also -- okay, look, let me back up and start again: it's almost December, and that means it's time for our annual December holiday points bonus.

The standard explanation: For the entire month of December, all orders made in the Shop of points and paid time, either for you or as a gift for a friend, will have 10% of your completed cart total sent to you in points when you finish the transaction. For instance, if you buy an order of 12 months of paid time for $35 (350 points), you'll get 35 points when the order is complete, to use on a future purchase.

( The fine print and much more behind this cut! )

Thank you, in short, for being the best possible users any social media site could possibly ever hope for. I'm probably in danger of crossing the Sappiness Line if I haven't already, but you all make everything worth it.

On behalf of Mark, Jen, Robby, and our team of awesome volunteers, and to each and every one of you, whether you've been with us on this wild ride since the beginning or just signed up last week, I'm wishing you all a very happy set of end-of-year holidays, whichever ones you celebrate, and hoping for all of you that your 2026 is full of kindness, determination, empathy, and a hell of a lot more luck than we've all had lately. Let's go.

Inking in a plan

I'm at the point with tattooing where I have a lot more ideas than I can ever use, so I have to prioritize my favorites, commit to a lot of coverage, and have a plan. I was at Burial Tattoo yesterday working with Gage on my right shoulder when the next few sessions came together in my mind. First, I consulted with him about something I'd like to do to on my left just below the ribs, and I have a couple of ideas for right above that with Daniel at Foundation, who hasn't tattooed me yet.

When I left Burial yesterday I made a stop at Lion's Paw to finally book two hours with Sarah so she can finish up the band around my right bicep. I need that done before Gage can resume work on my shoulder because he's going to fill in all the remaining space and extend the sky in the design to extend all the way behind other things nearby. Jimmy was also there, and I'd texted him to ask if he had time to consult about the right side of my chest soon, so we did that. He took a photo of my chest so he can plan it out. It's going to be big so I'm not sure exactly how soon we'll really dive in, but I said I'd like to do the outline as soon as we can so I can't change my mind and won't inadvertently grab any portion of the space.

I'm more concscientious about planning now because the very tattoo we worked on yesterday ended up taking part of the space from something I had planned for a gap next to it and now I'm not sure I'll be able to do that. It's an idea I previously discussed with Jimmy and he even has a rough trace of the spot, so we can make that determination when we line in the chest piece.

I can't remember if I talked here about the saga with my right nipple piercing. Long story short-ish, when I was in college, I had them both pierced and ended up creating the first website for the shop where I got all my piercings done. In exchange for that, the owner's brother made me an incredible pair of 4ga rings for them out of titanium, along with a very unique pair of smaller pieces to wear initially that wouldn't move around as much so the stretch could heal easier. Basiclly each was a shorter piece of the same wire bent over and he removed a bit of material from the opposing sides so a bead could pop in and close it. Really quite clever.

It was stupid of me to take those piercings out after I graduated from college in 1997, and ten years after that I decided to pierce them again and was much more aggressive. The piercer's largest needs were 6ga so we used those and immediately stretched to 4ga and used those custom pieces. My left nipple has been pierced ever since, and I've tried to do the right one five or six times since then but it's rejected every attempt. I decided less than a year ago that we would try one final time but would use a dermal punch rather than a needle so it would immediately be the gauge we were after and would also remove as much of the old scar tissue as possible. Unfortunately, it still rejected, but Vaella the apprentice piercer had an interesting point: maybe now that it's healed from that attempt, a new piercing might finally succeed. The reason I'm mentioning all of this is that the big chest tattoo I'm planning will in all likelihood cover that nipple, so while I was considering getting it pierced soon since I'm planning multiple tattoos in succession, it's best to wait now because of the tattoo. I'm not thrilled with the idea of tattooing over it, but Garrett's full chest is done and it looks way better since they included his nipples in the design rather than leaving cutouts around them.

And of course there's still the issue of my right leg, which is fully claimed because it'll be totally covered in stuff from TRON. It's been far too long since I had a session wtth Tyler for that. I need to pick an image of Bruce Boxleitner for the back of my thigh and from there the rest will be covered in scenery. I kinda want to start with some of the scenery on my lower leg since it's more visible. But that's a plan for another day.