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fallynleaf

@fallynleaf.bsky.social

264 followers 67 following 72 posts

fan of Moby Dick, pro wrestling, and language learning プロレスは諸行無常

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fallynleaf @fallynleaf.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

カレンダーにこれ以上糸を詰め込むのが難しくなってきた……

7月7日火曜日に設定されたカレンダーには、「パレスチナに自由と平和を」と書かれた七夕の願いが吊るされている。

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fallynleaf @fallynleaf.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

「パレスチナが自由になりますように」と書かれた短冊を飾った『ハクメイとミコチ』のカレンダー。日付は7月7日（月）です。

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fallynleaf @fallynleaf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

From a little later in the chapter, still March 5, 2025

"My mother could be right about Donner. He really could do some good."

"No. No, Donner's just a kind of human banister."

"A what?"

"I mean he's like ... like a symbol of the past for us to hold on to as we're pushed into the future. He's nothing. No substance. But having him there, the latest in a two-and-a-half-century-long line of American Presidents make people feel that the country, the culture that they grew up with is still here—that we'll get through these bad times and back to normal."

"We could," she said. "We might. I think someday we will." No, she didn't. She was too bright to take anything but the

most superficial comfort from her denial. But even superficial comfort is better than none, I guess. I tried another tactic.

"Did you ever read about bubonic plague in medieval Europe?" I asked.

She nodded. She reads a lot the way I do, reads all kinds of things. "A lot of the continent was depopulated," she said. "Some survivors thought the world was coming to an end."

"Yes, but once they realized it wasn't, they also realized there was a lot of vacant land available for the taking, and if they had a trade, they realized they could demand better pay for their work. A lot of things changed for the survivors."

"What is your point?"

"The changes." I thought for a moment. They werre slow changes compared to anything that might happen here, but it took a plague to make some of the people realize that things could change."

"So?"

"Things are changing now, too. Our adults haven't been wiped out by a plague so they're still anchored in the past, waiting for the good old days to come back. But things have changed a lot, and they'll change even more. Things are always changing. This is just one of the big jumps instead of the little step-by-step changes that are easier to take. People have changed the climate of the world. Now

they're waiting for the old days to come back."

"Your father says he doesn't believe people changed the climate in spite of what scientists say. He says only God could change the world in such an important way."

"Do you believe him?"

She opened her mouth, looked at me, then closed it again. After a while, she said, "I don't know."

"My father has his blind spots," I said. "He's the best person I know, but even he has blind spots."

"It doesn't make a difference," she said. "We can't make the climate change back, no matter why it changed in the first

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fallynleaf @fallynleaf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

From The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler: March 5, 2025

"Maybe, but none of it matters. I won't be able to afford college. I won't be able to get a job or move out of my parents' house because no job I could get would support me and there are no safe places to move. Hell, my parents are still living with their parents."

"I know," I said. "And as bad as that is, there's more."

"Who needs more? That's enough!" She began to eat the bean salad. It looked good, but I thought I might be about to ruin it for her.

"There's cholera spreading in southern Mississippi and Louisiana," I said. "I heard about it on the radio yesterday. There are too many poor people—illiterate, jobless,

homeless, without decent sanitation or clean water. They have plenty of water down there, but a lot of it is polluted. And you know that drug that makes people want to set fires?"

She nodded, chewing.

"It's spreading again. It was on the east coast. Now it's in Chicago. The reports say that it makes watching a fire better than sex. I don't know if the reporters are condemning it or advertising it." I drew a deep breath. "Tornadoes are smashing hell out of Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, and two or three other states. Three hundred people dead so far. And there's a blizzard freezing the northern midwest, killing even more people. In New York and New

Jersey, a measles epidemic is killing people. Measles!"

"I heard about the measles," Joanne said. "Strange. Even if people can't afford immunizations, measles shouldn't kill."

"Those people are half dead already," I told her. "They've come through the winter cold, hungry, already sick with other diseases. And, no, of course they can't afford immunizations. We're lucky our parents found the money to pay for all our immunizations. If we have kids, I don't see how we'll be able to do even that for them."

"I know, I know." She sounded almost bored. "Things are bad. My mother is hoping this new guy, President Donner,

will start to get us back to normal."

"Normal," I muttered. "I wonder what that is. Do you agree with your mother?"

"No. Donner hasn't got a chance. I think he would fix things if he could, but Harry says his ideas are scary. Harry says he'll set the country back a hundred years."

"My father says something like that. I'm surprised that Harry agrees."

"He would. His own ftahter thinks Donner is God. Harry wouldn't agree with him on anything."

I laugh, distracted, thinking about Harry's battles with his father. Neighborhood fireworks—plenty of flash, but no real fire.

"Why do you want to talk about this

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fallynleaf @fallynleaf.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

i've been reading Parable of the Sower in real time during the exact timeframe that the book is set, and today i woke up to a phone notification that i had another section to read

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

President William Turner Smith lost yesterdays election. Christopher Charles Morpeth Donner is our new President—President-elect. So what are we in for? Donner has already said that as soon as possible after his inauguration next year, he'll begin to dismantle the "wasteful, pointless, unnecessary" moon and Mars programs. Near space programs dealing with communications and

experimentation will be privatized-sold off.

Also, Donner has a plan for putting people back to work. He hopes to get laws changed, suspend "overly restrictive" minimum wage, environmental, and worker protection laws for those employers willing to take on homeless employees and provide them with training and adequate room and board.

What's adequate, I wonder: A house or apartment? A room? A bed in a shared room? A barracks bed? Space on a floor? Space on the ground? And what about people with big families? Won't they be seen as bad investments? Won't it make much more sense for companies to hire

single people, childless couples, or, at most, people with only one or two kids? I wonder.

And what about those suspended laws? Will it be legal to poison, mutilate, or infect people—as long as you provide them with food, water, and space to die?

Dad decided not to vote for Donner after all. He didn't vote for anyone. He said politicians turned his stomach.

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fallynleaf @fallynleaf.bsky.social · 02/11/2024

31 days of poppies خشخاش #Drawtober #Drawtober2024

Black ink drawings of eight poppies, labeled October 1, 2024 through October 8, 2024

Black ink drawings of seven poppies, labeled October 9, 2024 through October 15, 2024

Black ink drawings of eight poppies, labeled October 16, 2024 through October 23, 2024

Black ink drawings of eight poppies, labeled October 24, 2024 through October 31, 2024

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