Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73366&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=extreme-heat-in-japan

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73366

"Japan announces new name for days over 40C after hottest summer ever", by Ruth Wright, Euronews (4/20/26)

They have words for it.  The one that's taking the online media by storm is kokushobi  酷暑日.  That literally means "harsh / cruel + hot days".  I can attest to this characterization of scorching  days in Japan.  I remember one summer in Kyoto, which I wouldn't think of as a particularly hot city, when I stood on the sidewalk and was getting ready to cross the street, the pavement of which seemed to be melting under the shimmering heat waves.

The cited article gives other currently popular words for dog days (7/3/25-9/11/26 in America this summer) in Japan.

BUT, here we're talking about 40º C (104º F).  Sure, that's hot, uncomfortably hot, but see below my personal account of a month of 106º F days in Austin, Texas.   That's surreal heat!  And when it comes to the Tarim and Turpan basins in Eastern Central Asia (ECA), you have to go hide in an underground irrigation ditch / canal to escape the torrid temperatures.

Here, in Swarthmore, PA, we had one day of 93º F temp three days ago (mid-April), but now it's erratically down near freezing.

 

Selected readings

• "Texas German" (4/25/20)
• "University of Texas Linguistics Research Center" (4/24/20) — if you're interested in the history of Indo-European linguistics, this is a classic, must-read account of an NEH workshop.  As for extreme heat, feast your eyes on this paragraph describing the EXTREME HEAT I experienced there (Austin TX) in the summer of 1990:
  • It was one of the most amazing, intense experiences of my life, not least because the temperature reached over 106º every day for more than a month!  It was so hot that the poor campus squirrels would lie prone on their bellies with their legs spreadeagled to absorb whatever relative coolness there may have been in the earth and look up at me pathetically.  Just to see what it was like, I ran up the steps of the Longhorns stadium.  After about five ups and downs, it seemed as though I were dissolving in sweat.

[h.t. François Lang]

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73366&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=extreme-heat-in-japan

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73366

Can the salvation of the Literature Club be something as simple as blackmail?

O Maidens in Your Savage Season, volume 2 by Mari Okada & Nao Emoto

Title: After The Rain
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Varian, Fred, Jonathan Willaway, Liana, Sil-El, Scott.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the series.
Summary: Drenched though they are the travellers still welcome the sight of a rainbow.
Word Count: 400
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 513: Amnesty 85, using Challenge 452: Rainbow.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.

It's Wednesday! We're halfway through the week! I am a little less sleepy today, which is nice. I've not quite made up my sleep debt yet from the last couple of nights, but it's definitely better.

Work yesterday was quite busy, but I'll admit, I loafed a little bit in my tiredness. A, the head of the call center, was having a bad day, so I was talking to her a good chunk of it. That woman needs a vacation in the worst way. It's just been a bear of a month for her. New health diagnosis, the phones have been psycho, we're switching our telephone systems tomorrow, and then the whole thing with the Bethesda office has been a fucking mess. I'm trying to talk her into taking a week off and go sit somewhere on a beach, or in the mountains and just relax and dissconnect. She's a great boss, so I'd hate to lose her to burnout. I still did some other work, but mostly I was trying to convince her to put her own oxygen mask on first. I will definitely be texting her pictures of vacation in an attempt to help relax her while I'm gone.

After work, I promptly gagged on a pill and felt nauseous the rest of the night. It was not fun. I have soup and plain chicken skewers for breakfast, as I just couldn't take more than a spoonful of soup. Feeling much better today. As with all my new digestive foibles, I'm blaming them on Mounjaro.

Today, I shall do work, and then cook dinner. I've been looking forward to the halibut for days, so I'm definitely going to cook it tonight before it goes off. Then, I shall nap again.

Tomorrow, we get our new telephony system. It's a VOIP, so they're insisting that all our connections are wired. This is going to mean running a ton of ethernet cable from the kitchen to the living room. I guess that'll get done tonight as well, so I'm up and running tomorrow morning. I'm fairly sure that this rollout is going to be a shitshow, but we'll see. We're the 4th rollout, so we'll see if they've learned from their errors. Supposedly they did figure out how to trigger pop ups with patient information, so that's something. The customer puts in their phone # and DOB, and as it works now, the system cross references the two, and will throw up a pop up with their info, that we then will verify. When the pt is new, or mistypes their info, we'll get a blank pop up. Those are the times when you're really praying that the caller doesn't have a thick accent. When they do, I spend a lot of time praying for a name I know how to spell. Shah, Nguyen,Patel, Li, Sanchez please. And if it's not, please let them be pleasant. I know how much it sucks to have to spell your name repeatedly every time, but work with me here. After that, I'm sure I'll be exhausted, so we'll see if I fix anything for dinner.

Tomorrow will be exactly 14 days til vacation. And Saturday, we might get our boarding passes! It's very exciting. It's still surreal. It's been so long since we had a proper vacation that ut feels unreal. There's a great song in the Lost Boys Musical called "skip to the good part," and that's where I am with vacation. I want to skip ahead to the vacation and get to do all the things I've been planning since last April. We have so many adventures to go on, and I want all of them.

I saw a video of some whales returning to Alaska for the season, which made me happy. We may not see hummpbacks, but the killer whales are back, and I'm more excited about them. I have seen Shamu, in his tiny pool, but I want to see one wild and free. And I want to take the White Pass train up into the mountains and see all the amazing scenery. And I want to walk Creek Street and maybe visit a historic brothel. I want to buy ALL the souvenirs. My bag is definitely going to be overweight, though. I might need to invest in a second carry on suitcase to keep it under weight. Or use the one we have. We'll see. I kind of want one of the cool ones that have a fold up cup holder. Then I'd be able to pack one of my coats in there and save me some weight. The limit is 50lbs and I'm already at 43, so there could be more wiggle room.

We have laundry service on the boat, but the bags are very tiny, so I want to bring at least 6-7 days of clothing, plus cold weather gear. I will do some looking and see what I can find. The one we have is an Amazon Basic, and it is indeed very basic.

Might be time to get rid of what we had. I'm sure that one of the thrift shops would take it. They were great when we were driving to Disney, less so when we're flying. We'll see what we end up with. I also could then pack our emergency meds in the carry out. My standard meds will be in my personal item, but I ordered an emergency pack from a company called Jase. For a fee, they'll make up a personalized kit of medication for travel. It's various antibiotics, anti nausea, antifungal and cortisone cream to cover any medical emergency. Since cruise medical care is ridiculously expensive, it's a little peace of mind that I'm covered if my tooth starts acting up again, or if anyone has any problems. I was going to put it in my checked bag, but if I take a roller bag, I'll probably put it in there.

I'll see what the options are for something that will get to me before we leave.

I've downloaded SO many books for the flight. I have the RSS feed of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books on my dreamwidth, so I get a ton of recs for books that are on sale, or even on kindle unlimited. I was trying to wait to read any of them, but I started one called Dreadful that seems pretty good so far. I've got books by both Ursula Vernon and John Scalzi, so that'll be good. And for Jess, I think the new Murderbot book comes out on 5/5. I've already preordered that for them. Something to read on the flights if you can't sleep.

The flights are the part I'm not looking forward to. 3 hours in the BWI terminal, plus another 6 hours in the air, assuming everything is on time. When we land, it'll already be 1pm our time, but only 10am in PST.

The first day is going to be a lot. We'll be getting up by 2:30am and not laying down til nearly midnight our time. We're all going to be falling asleep in our steak dinner.

One of the people from the Facebook group reached out to me about doing dinner the Friday before we get on the cruise, so we might be doing an early dinner with them before going to the movies. We'll see how organized we can get in 2 weeks. He's really nice, so I'd be okay with that. When I mentioned going with my spouse, referring to them as they/them, he reached out to let me know that Holland America does Pride meet ups, usually on the first night of the cruise. He's traveling with people from his softball team.

I'm really looking forward to both Pike Place Market and the Granville Island Public Market. It looks like they have some cool stuff and good food. Mostly good food.

Okay, time to go forth and get ready for work. Everyone have an absolutely outstanding Wednesday!

and her excuse is "Your father and I both agreed that it was best to raise you away from my wealthy-but-toxic family, whom I was returning to". And having met the protagonist's half-siblings, I can't say that this was wrong - but what, she just loved him so much more than her younger two that she had with her new, richer, more socially acceptable husband? No matter how you look at it, she's not exactly winning the mother of the year award.

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Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Ilya Rozanov
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: christianpuppetshow HR art on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: Gorgeous colours in this nearly single-colour painting of Ilya by the lake, bathed in sunset.
Link: Drawing Ilya at sunset, backup link here

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Elizabeth Weir, Teyla Emmagan, Radek Zelenka
Rating: Mature
Length: 13,319
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Rachael Sabotini on AO3
Themes: Arranged marriage, AU - royalty, Diplomatic marriage, Politics, Mutual pining

Summary: "It is your duty to the empire to marry Rodney McKay."

Reccer's Notes: This is an interesting romantic romp set in a somewhat steampunk AU where John is married off by his cousin the empress Elizabeth, to Rodney, a leader in the neighbouring nation. John is part of treaty agreements to negotiate peace. Consummating his marriage proves difficult due to Rodney being a workaholic, anxious about never having had sex with a man before, and, that common marriage of convenience trope, as John can end the marriage after a year and a day if he chooses. There are obstacles and pining and inadequate communication, but eventually John makes a place for himself in Rodney's labs, proves his loyalty, and we get the happy ending. A fun read!

Fanwork Links: The Spare

These are the content notes for "Where You Find Light."

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These are the location notes for "Where You Find Light."

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This poem came out of the August 5, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from dialecticdreamer, rix_scaedu, and jake67jake. It also fills the "Before the Fact" square in my 8-1-25 card for the Crime Classics Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Big One thread of the Polychrome Heroics series. It is the first in a triptych, followed by "When You Learn to Read" and "No Faster or Firmer Friendships."

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1. Today was my first day back at work at the office. Lots of meetings and not a lot else, but since I did all my catching up yesterday, that was fine. I'm planning to work from home tomorrow (and maybe Thursday?).

2. I asked Carla to make hummus for me today while I was at work, since I usually make some on the weekend to have for weekday lunches but hadn't gotten to it, and she did make it for me, but also first mistakenly opened a can of pinto beans instead of chickpeas, so she made refried beans and we had that with some more tacos for dinner as there's still plenty of carnitas and fresh tortillas from yesterday, and they were both delicious and the perfect amount for two servings. (Though we still have more taco fixings, so if there had been more, we could have finished them up later this week.)

3. There was a decent chance of rain today but it pretty much didn't rain. No rain at all in Gardena where I was, and Carla said there was a little dampness on the ground mid day but that was it. I really have had enough to rain for now, so I'm glad.

4. I spotted Tuxie in an unusual place the other day (in the neighbors' front yard). He seemed startled to see me, too, lol.

Two things I like to see in my TV shows: women who are allowed to get justifiably angry, and women who are allowed to eat. They're not the greatest things about Rome, but they're up there.

Walking back to my place instead of taking a bike, I spotted a cardinal in the park, perching inside the flowering cherry blossoms. A male, easily identified, a darker red than the surrounding pinks, and it fit very nicely in with all the petals. I thought to take a moment to rummage through my bag and grab my phone, then decided not to bother. I stood and listened a bit, and felt satisfied with that. I took note of the last lilacs and magnolias, and felt satisfied with those.

It didn't last, but it was nice in the moment.

I am posting from the computer before my present one -- this one dates from the early 2000s, and is a bit slow. My good 2019 computer is in the shop getting a new keyboard -- apparently when one key is busted all of them are and the entire top of the laptop gets replaced. It's the down arrow that didn't work.

And because of that I have about 10 days either with only my phone (I will not describe going through 100+ new emails there; it is tedious) or this elderly one that I have purposely kept on an older operating system because this lappie has really excellent older software that simply doesn't work on the more recent op systems. So I am relaxing, watching old stored movies (Skyfall, anyone?) and doing offline sorting of books and papers and so on.

ETA: The guy at the shop said I could have them do the work in-house, for about 10 days, or they could send it to another shop where they would mail it back after about 5 days. I do not trust the current postmaster, or his cuts to service, or the possibility that it would end up sitting on a shelf somewhere and not come back, so I agreed to the 10 days or so.

I'm also feeling the losses, and letting myself feel them and letting them go through me instead of "braving it out" or trying to ignore them and having everything get worse later. I don't want worse later; now is enough. I can bear now. I am remembering so many little things, and big things, aond old things and it all just works.

It also means I'm sleeping a lot, around my meds schedule, which is less easy than it sounds. Basically, I have a BP pill and a blood thinner, each of which needs to be taken 2x a day about 12 hours apart, but not at the same time because the stress on my heart is too much. So I am carefully scheduling the one for 9 am and pm and the other for 10-11 am and pm, and that is working. Otherwise my heart bangs until it wakes me up, which is not fun.

I'm also handspinning silk roving in various colors; it's one of my favorite things to do while watching tv, because looking from the work in my hands to the set across the room keeps my eyes from getting stuck at the shorter distance. I did maybe 15 yards, three ply, today, which is 45 yards of single ply. You do the 3-ply by putting a big slipknot loop into the end of it, then continue to loop through the loop and twirl the spindle in the opposite direction of the single ply's twist. The result is useful, not so thin that it falls apart, and looks good. I am thinking of crocheting small keepsake bags from them.

That's about what's happening here, give or take a freeze warning or hearing the fox calling in the park half a block away late at night. I'm glad of that fox and its kin; they are welcome to come to my yard to eat mice whenever they wish.

So Marvel Trumps Hate, a fannish charity auction that I have occasionally participated in, has people offering fic and art and various other fannish crafts and services for charity. There are usually a few people offering fanbinds of Marvel fanfiction, and in 2024, a bunch of people got together and organized a group bid for zerosconsort to bind two of my stories. I had no idea this was happening! It was awesome!

So I talked with Zero about it -- mostly in the spring and summer of 2025 -- and we settled on doing two anthologies of my shorter Steve/Tony fic, split by POV. So there would be one Steve book and one Tony book. I know we talked about what stories should go in there and how to balance the word count, but this was also the period of time where I was getting 20-25 migraines a month for about five months straight, so I don't actually... remember... a lot of last year especially well, my capacity for coherent reasoning was at about 0%, and I figured whatever Zero wanted to do was probably going to be good and I would just be pleasantly surprised when Books Got Here.

(I am really sorry. It was a lot of migraines.)

Zero did also mention that she was additionally working on a fanbind of my Trek AU and would send me that too, and I thought that was really sweet of her. She commissioned additional art, also, which is definitely above and beyond. It's really nice art.

So I was expecting three books in the mail yesterday and opened the box and got FIVE BOOKS and my first thought, honestly, was, "Oh, my God, I have had so many migraines, and I don't remember talking about five books. Is this something we actually talked about that I was supposed to know about or is this supposed to be a surprise that I don't know about?" But it was in fact not a thing I was already supposed to know! It was a surprise! So that's good! I didn't entirely break my brain! Whew.

Yeah. It has been A Time.

(The two additional books, that I did not know about, are Thrust Issues and my Ults soulmate AU. The Ults soulmate AU has every occurrence of the word "soulmate" in red. Hooray for rubrication.)

Anyway, if you want to see them, I personally am terrible at taking pictures so nobody wants me to take any, I promise you, but Zero made a very nice masterpost on Tumblr with more detail about all of the books.

The Star Trek AU is black with SILVER SPARKLES. Like spaaaaace. Eeee.

Covid: Speaking Out About Rubynye by werpiper.

We went out to Mattoon today.

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