books
+ Weavers, Scribes, and Kings: A New History of the Ancient Near East by Amanda H. Podany. 2022. So very thorough, determined to give women equal focus, and surprisingly granular, given the subject.
+ Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher. 2026. Horror. TW massive body horror, insects.
~ The Silk Road: A New History by Valerie Hansen. 2012. Hard to rate this. Hansen chooses only one of the several overland "silk roads" to research and does some solid scholarship about it. However, she draws general and highly questionable conclusions about ALL of the silk roads from her single study.
+ America and Iran: A History 1720 to the Present by John Ghazvinian. 2020. Outstanding! The best contextualization of the US-Iran relationship I've ever read. I only wish it included an appendix covering the last six years since publication. Highly recommended.
yarning
Got an order for a bunny, a heart, and a mushroom, which I finished today. Also got an order for a different bunny and a different mushroom, which I'll start on tonight. Got the dinosaur for nibling in the mail.

healthcrap
I successfully got my health coverage renewed for a full year, instead of the mere four months it was, initially & inexplicably, set for. Got my second shingles shot Friday. Got meds refilled & resumed the one I had totally run out of, doh. Got hit by ALL the shingles shot side effects, which is like a bad case of the flu (worse than covid). So not fun, but good to have it finished for life. Botox for migraines this coming Friday. Generally feeling somewhat better.
#resist
I hope some (many?) of you were able to march Saturday for No Kings Day 3.
+ April 5: General Strike
+ May 1: General Strike. (
https://generalstrikeus.com/)
I hope you're all doing well! <333