Month: January 2022

Time to acknowledge

Omicron is really, really fucking with my mental health. I’m terrified for my grandchildren – just because I’m not talking about it doesn’t mean it’s not true – and terrified for all the non-boosted and immunocompromised people I know and love, and you know who you are so I don’t need to call you out.

I’m angry into the next century at Dr. Bonnie. I’m filled with loathing at how immediate improvement to the ventilation of school classrooms isn’t on the top of the list of every school district in BC. I’m filled with despair over the testing situation. All of it has been a maelstrom; but since there’s no blood, no yelling, and no drama, it’s easy to dismiss.

Someone said on Twitter recently…. rather than misquote let me dig it up, because it’s HOW I FEEL RIGHT NOW

@disnazzio
·
Jan 2
If the pandemic ended tonight I still don’t think I would ever get over the two years of constant relentless exposure to the fact that very few people think human beings have a duty of care to each other.

 

blurb today

Born in western Mi’kma’ki in 1958, settled in S’ólh Téméxw since 1996, Allegra Sloman works across a broad range of word forms, including written correspondence with friends and family, homilies, ranting, poems, a conlang called ‘bih-bah’ based on the sounds basketballs make going through hoops, twenty tweets a day, open letters, teaching a cat to speak, songwriting, standup comedy, essays, daily blogging, fanfic, parody, and short stories. She is also self-publishing SF novels which are available at leanpub.com/upsun. Much of her material is available at allegrasloman.com under creative commons 2.5.

More writing games

  1. I do not remember
  2. a spy
  3. Destiel fic in which the Dean character rescues the Cas character from a landslide
  4. Well it changes every day so I guess finishing “The Sword that Cries Ruin!” which is another fanfic which is already over 200K long
  5. Cochin.
  6. Scrivener
  7. Don’t have one. I guess Brainpickings comes closest.
  8. A.M.
  9. David J. Dowker, but unfortunately our writing process isn’t compatible. He’s a cogitator and I’m a pantser.
  10. fuck you it’s the published books I care about LOL
  11. ERM all of them? I do like Wine Gums
  12. Typing. Handwriting is for when I’m more thoughtful and less reactive.
  13. High fantasy. I’ve had stabs at it but they never ‘stuck’.
  14. Probably mystery. PLOTS MAKE ME DIE INSIDE.
  15. HAW HAW I bet anyone who knows the UPSUN series already knows the answer to this and the answer is yes.
  16. Name first.
  17. I don’t write heroes and villains because I reject the reductionist and colonial approach to plotting. (JUST TRY AND PROVE THAT WRONG.)
  18. JUST THREE ARE YOU HIGH. Jane Coaston. My God. It doesn’t matter whether she’s writing about college football or racism or local politics, there’s just something so crisp and clear about her writing. @apebbleinthesky is so wonderfully discursive about left wing politics without ever getting into the namecally stuff…@mssinenomine (Gabrielle Peters) is also a fiery fiery writer.

I’m wearing Loki’s rune after all

This popped up this morning, evidence that I don’t need much inspiration for a poem:

From the yew-grove to the valley of the fallen
I shall travel with my bow, my knife, my faithful dog
Under the light of the ancestors, bright now,
Dancing the heavens, I shall walk with my thoughts
And my shadow, cast green along the snow,
Until the tale of all my deeds is told
And Freya gathers me into her field at last

So, there isn’t just Valhalla. There are two other places the dead go. Freya has a field called folkvangr (pronounced folkwongs, just to mess you up) where she gathers half the dead. The Allfather gets the other half of the noble dead in Valhalla.

 

Tea and toast

Woke up just after three after a restful sleep. Three kudos on my dashboard this morning. Always fun to see what people are reading. Another person has subscribed to my mailchimp account for UPSUN as well. In addition I logged into dreamwidth (the ‘replacement’ for live journal for people who don’t want all their data stolen by the Russians) because I really wanted to read something one of my filk buddies has posted and …. I hadn’t posted since 2018. uff dah. I posted. It was sad having to mention that Tom had died.

Worked on the fanfic a bit, not much. In the portion I just wrote one of the brothers is teasing the other about his new relationship and I very much enjoyed writing that because one of the great wellsprings of Supernatural fanfic is the abiding love (and shittalk) between the bros… it’s very easy to write the shittalk because they are constantly teasing each other (and would die for each other).

Still not experiencing hunger and thirst properly. It’s very strange to be forcing myself to eat, unless it’s something sweet.

The wind is gusting hard and it makes the plastic siding creak in an alarming way.

Ryker’s got a mucousy cold, poor wee tyke. Alex is a snot factory whether he has a cold or not. Just sayin’.

Had to shovel again; the lack of walkway salt was mitigated by the fact that it started raining and melting, so we didn’t get freezing rain. Lawks that was one big raccoon we got through the property night before last though, HUGE pawprints.

It’s very pleasant to no longer be required to run a heater all night in my room. It’s quite pleasant in the house now.

Well, I boiled water but I haven’t made tea, and the toast is still waiting for my work, so time for some foodicles and to start my day. FIRST TASK. Wrestling my weighted blanket back into its cover. This will literally take me half an hour as it’s like a USB cable. First you attach the WRONG zipper, and then you attach the RIGHT ONE, IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, and then omg maybe THIS will work. Heavy sigh. Still haven’t put all my clothes away.

This morning my twitter feed is full of: Trans people commenting (still) on Matrix Resurrections, including the best tweet sized appreciation of it I’ve seen so far; disabled people saying CAN YOU PLEASE STOP TRYING TO KILL US BY NOT WEARING MASKS AND SHITTY POLICY; Glenn Greenwald, may the great Parent of the Universe buy him a fucking clue, saying how twitter doesn’t have the right to eject people from its platform cause free speech, when it’s already been established that it really isn’t. He’s defending Marjorie, by the way. Candidly, clownbag is too kind for that man.

The Cincinnati Beagles won the division (over KC). We did not see that coming. It was a weird game with some patently ugly and bad calls. I mean, how many times is it possible to repeat 4th down?

@ElSangito:

i understand finding matrix 4’s lack of subtlety grating but i would never wanna use metaphors again either if the metaphorical allegory i wrote before got co-opted by far right patriarchal fascists whose whole thing is to eradicate my entire people

 

 

7 am and I’m a tad underslept

She’s only been booted off twitter for a week, but Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bile emissions in twitter form are gone for now thank Christ. One of my faves said good so I wrote a leel poem

alas alas / tis for a week / then once again/  she’ll start to beak.

Then another of my faves said NO IT’S PERMANENT and so…. I bringeth you the newis gladde!

Shoulda put ‘BURMA SHAVE’ at the end of that poem.

Today, a plan of action for all the medical related stuff I have to do. Get my tits squoze for health and science! (Mammogram appointment, the arrangement thereof.) Overnight BP monitoring! I DO NOT WANT IT, NOT AT ALL, EXCUSE ME, because they warn you that you won’t sleep that well, but at least I got my BP down substantially before I’m doing it, which is cheating OR IS IT. Remember that adequate roborative sleep is REQUIRED for lowering BP and then they give you a gadget that prevents you from sleeping properly.

scuse me? Say waht? You’re going to find out what my blood pressure is doing over a 24 hour period during which I have to forego restful sleep, get bent.

Also, getting re-ups on the Metformin and the Crestor and the Inderal. (So glad Jeff nagged me into using a weekly pill organizer, what a difference.) My abdominal pains and brain fog might actually be the Crestor, but didn’t I have that before?? tho’ in general I’m no longer getting side effects (except for the poopiness of Metformin, and I will never forget my convo with mOm about that, it definitely sticks out in the rear view…ahem) from the meds I’ve been prescribed.

Also, a plan of action for THE ADDITIONAL SNOW THAT AN ANGRY DEITY WHIZZED OUT ON US. WHEN WE HAVE NO ROADWAY SALT. grr. AND NONE TO BE HAD IN THE PNW calice tabarnak

I appear to have lost a couple of pounds, hopefully it’ll make that unprofessional ice witch of an RN at my doctor’s office chide me less.

ALSO, more writing, since I’m in the mood again, and I’m in a nicely domestic portion of it. Domestic Alternate Universe (AU) is mah bag. Sleepy cuddles and changing bandages, happy sigh.

One kudo from AO3 this morning, for my second most recent story. That one seems to have landed very well among the fandom. (mOm liked it too)

I keep thinking how weird it is that I literally feel better (less foggy, more energetic) than I have in ages but I really did not get a lot of sleep. Good thing my whole life is configured around my bed. Which I changed the sheets of last night, and restuffed my bolster too. (Had to use my feet, get in there ya goddam pillows.)

Gosh that sounds rude. But it gets ruder still.

“Henry Cavill can stuff my bolster any time. But maybe not with his feet.”

I only say this sexually harassing thing to segue into how Henry Cavill gets sexually harassed (fondled and called yummy etc etc) mostly by young white women bingo callers (callback to Frank Magazine – bingo callers = television personalities) on the tube all the bloody time BUT if I ever met Henry Cavill in real life I’d try to have a conversation with him about his dog (the one he says saved his life) and maybe how he’s a fucking icon for mental health and gaming being an activity for everyone and I wouldn’t say a thing about how his frame is nigh perfect; it’s not the most important thing about him. Nothing about the work, because apart from his grunting and swordsmanship in The Witcher, which is world class, I’m not really familiar with a lot of his oeuvre. He was so very adorable in I Capture the Castle though, I remember that much.

Jeff and I have had a couple of laugh until you cry moments recently. I watched some ads go by on fast forward while Jeff was watching the Rose Bowl and I conflated that Tom Hiddleston and Kate McKinnon were now in a show called the Spy Who Dumped Me. I thought that sounded great and I wanted to watch it and Jeff said, well, you were watching ads for a series of shows and movies on a network and none of the images you saw had anything to do with each other. I felt very stupid but abrumptly we were both laughing our asses off. It was one of those why are we laughing moments. But I try to read meaning into everything and having my assumptions reproved in such a kind way landed as hilarious.

The Spy Who Dumped Me is a 2018 movie with a 6.1/10 rating.

 

lazy running a temperature day

Since I’m not coughing and my sats are okay, this isn’t covid. My appetite is definitely off and in a real shift in my behaviour I keep losing my ability to stay hydrated. I will try harder tomorrow.

Even so I made a tiffin of homemade chicken fingers in panko breading, taters and salad, (FOLLOWED BY CHAPMANS ‘FUCK YOU CUSTOMER IF YOU WON’T GET VACCINATED ice cream) ran and dried a load of laundry, did manage to get the kitchen back under control (it has since escaped), called my mOm, wrote 451 words on the Destiel fic that currently has my attention, read an edit of one of Dave’s poems, said ‘sorry no’ to a New Years Day walk with Al P., laughed out loud at Lois’s Letter at the End of the Year, had a lovely long bath, take my blood pressure twice, commune with Buster (more word training in preparation for getting him talking buttons) and of course there was that shopping expotition at the start of the day. So while I did not have a strenuous day, it wasn’t an entirely unproductive one.

Jeff took care of gravelling the slips of ice all over the damned walkways.

And now I will make my bed and find a nightie and TIMMMMMBBBERRRRRRR

AFTER I DO

THIS but not as 1 like 1 answer because that’s just letting your shit get data mined while you twirl for likes like a fucking overfed bear

Image

  1. either Michel or Kima although you know how much I love Jesse and Raven
  2. The Dosadi Experiment
  3. eh Raven mebbe
  4. wow…. any suggestions mOm
  5. Midnite Moving Co gets a ten episode series.
  6. drafting, editing, revising, plotting, in that order
  7. fanfic, M/M AU Domestic
  8. bildungsroman
  9. Go away and work on something (or nothing) else
  10. My bed. I dunno why. I like libraries and other people’s houses
  11. Dunnett, Barbara Tuchman
  12. what the fuck kind of question is that. Of course I can, I’m looking at the internet while I’m writing. OH YOU MEAN FICTION you fucking elitist. Bite me
  13. I try very hard to write every day, even if it’s just a verse of a song
  14. varies 100-4000
  15. morning, just after I’ve eaten and had caffeine; the middle of the night when things are quiet
  16. plotting jesus god
  17. Eurekalert.org. Never fails
  18. Nah, the chain letters of the internet piss me off.

30 visitors to the site yesterday

I don’t know if it’s a new record, but it was quite something to see those stats this morning.

ANY HOO

Betty White is dead. Because I’m a blabbermouth probably half a dozen people who follow me on twitter heard it from me first. The internet is helping people express their emotions, a kind of worshipful, almost amused, grief being foremost.

MANY PEOPLE ARE ANGRY THAT HENRY KISSINGER OUTLIVED HER. Many, o many.

Greeted the New Year with gentle snores, as is the custom in our clan.

This morning we will do a small shop. I certainly don’t intend to linger in the store, and I’m going to wear my most expensive mask.

VOCATION – GRATITUDE – PARSIMONY

Those are my three words this year. Work on my vocation, complete projects. Be grateful and express gratitude for my life of good fortune. Parsimony – try to expend no resources or money needlessly. We’ll see how we go.

No billets-doux from the readers at Archive of Our Own this morning. I continue to work on the stories I have on the go, but the output is rather feeble – 50 – 200 words at a time. Ah well, a beach is built by grinding a whole bunch of different rocks over thousands of years, right?

Time to plug the laptop in to charge and deal with the crockery insurrection in the kitchen.

 

 

Accomplishments 2021

First overnight sleepover with Alex

Witnessed the birth of my second grandchild, Ryker

Started collecting a pension

Rearranged my finances with the assistance of my fOlks and the support of my brO

Survived the pandemic – got vaxxed and boosted.

Recorded MOAR TUNES in January

Got all my musical instruments into the same room (the spare oom) which makes making music with Alex even easier

Started actually dealing with my health issues especially getting my BP down.

Made A LOT OF WHOLE WHEAT BUNS

Helped my mOm deal with some creative issues with her family history, and deepened my appreciation of the benefits and hazards and beauties of family history.

Invented the term TWOOTLES for Twitter mutuals

Started feeding crows.

I sat with a dying man and read a poem about it at his memorial service, and we sang, too.

Started writing letters to rellies and friends on a semi regular basis (I owe half a dozen letters currently HAW)

Was able to identify that a birdsong was of a bird I had never seen, followed the sound and identified an out of range yellow breasted chat, but was later able to confirm that where the chat sang was bang in the middle of everything they need to breed.

Got birdies to eat out of my hands at Fraser Foreshore. I recommend it as an experience.