Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

New West yesterday

Went into New West on the bus to pick up ice cream and summat for dinner and to return Mexican Gothic, which was so damned good I understood why I waited three months for it at the library, but also why I had to return it as fast as possible for the next person. On the way home I saw Peggy because she AND TOM drove over and dropped off cookies and Jeff and I ate them all in one go (almond sugar cookies). Sooooo the Christmas I AM EATING THINGS I SHOULDN’T TABLEAU continues.

So Tom is home. He sounds quite vigorous, but he doesn’t get to drive for another month and a half or so.

The big fuzzy hoodies I ordered arrived. I hope people like them and if they don’t they can give them back to me.

Finished the Right Stuff TV show. It’s a little too kitchen sinky to get the full upvote, but I enjoyed it. A second season has been optioned but not ordered.

I hope everyone has a lovely day. I don’t have much planned beyond a walk to the mailbox and add to the 3300 words I wrote on The Best Roommate in the World.

Good morning

Got an absolutely lovely letter and A DESTIEL prezzie of two little badges of Dean saying BITCH and Castiel saying ASS-BUTT from Jan M yesterday, and the Oodies arrived (I went spare and ordered immediate fam something identical for Christmas (a giant fuzzy hoodie covered in cutesy cartoon characters with an enormous pocket)) so I’ll be able to hand them out in time. Jeff got one covered in otters – I got the avocado toast. I’ve washed one and they stay really soft if you put them on fluff dry.

The badges immediately went on the Nyan-Cat hat, which Keith bought for me and has gotten more compliments than any other item of clothing I’ve ever worn, which now bears badges for trans rights, asexual rights, anarcho-feminism, anarcho-syndicalism and DESTIEL. lol

So Christmas wise a great day.

I made cinnamon sticks, wrote a letter to Tammy which I haven’t mailed, watched some TV and had a very low energy day, including no practicing (mostly because I didn’t do it first thing in the morning and next thing I know it’s FEETSBALL of which there is so very much right now thanks to the COVID screwing with schedules.) I did however wash and change my sheets and the duvet cover, and so slept very well last night. Lying in bed with my heart pounding because I forgot to call Tom AGAIN and it was now too late was how my day finished.

Today I’m going into New West to pick up some baking stuff and drop off Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which finally came in to the library and which I must now return immediately so the next person who has it on hold can get it, because it would be rude to keep it until the middle of JANUARY. I read it all at one go in the bathtub yesterday. It was unpredictable without being unfair to the reader, reversed some horror tropes in lovely, finicky, hard-to-accomplish ways, centred brown bodies and minds, and had some really really cool things to say about colonialism and horror. And the monster is so monstrous. Just horrific and smelly, exactly as a monster should be. Plus a resolution totally made for me.  Yup. Noemí is a great heroine and given that the book is a NYT bestseller I have to assume that this sucker’s going to be made into a movie or miniseries, and I can hardly wait. Silvia is the co-author of the book about writing SF/F I recently bought AND she lives in Vancouver AND she’s a Dunnetteer, although she didn’t attend the ‘spit’ she told a friend she might go to, which I attended, so I didn’t get a chance to meet her. She sounds fascinating and a total boss.

We’re rewatching the Librarians. Blasted through the first 3 episodes of Season 5 of the Expanse – totally back on form after a very unpleasant and badly arranged season 4 AND THEY SHOULD NEVER HAVE LET NAOMI MAKE PLANETFALL THAT WAS STUPID and not in the books. But it’s great again. And now I have to WAIT again because they only released the first three episodes.

Elementary continues to be our TV palate cleanser. It is the show against which other shows must be compared, much to their detriment. Only POI, Burn Notice first 5 seasons, Fringe and ER come close.

I’m 3000 words into ‘the Best Roommate in the World’. Some addition, some very necessary infill. Don’t worry mOm when I’m up to 4K words I’ll send you the update.

okay COMING UP ON 4 AM when the wifi goes down for three hours so I can write and practice and do laundry etcetera so I gotta go. Everybody look busy! It’s Christmas bustle time!!

Hullo all

Allegra’s very good week continues! I got my eyes checked (onset of diabetes, BP etc) and they are VERY GOOD for 62 year old peepers. Little bit cataract in one eye, no biggie, the horrific slide in visual acuity has been completely halted, and I do not have vertical heterophoria, something that often accompanies ADD.

Walked to Planet Bachelor – a very pleasant walk, only a tiny spit of rain on the way home – and Keith cooked a vegan lunch, and they talked and I listened about the move, and they are all so excited and happy it’s just blowing my mind. I thought Paul might need some help but Katie, our matriarch-in-training, is acing it. They’re going to double pay for accommodations so they can take their time. I made some notes.

Suzanne’s ex-husband Bill died in the last few days. The story is not mine to tell. I called Suzanne and while I wasn’t so foolish as to think I could cheer her up after her loss, I did manage to take her mind off her troubles for twenty minutes and that’s not nothing. Two of her four kids are in crisis right now and this family news will not help. Please hit me hard if I complain about my children. Not everything is planning, there’s a lot of fate in there.

The family court date did not provide a resolution, and it’s now going to trial.

Mexican Gothic (by a local sci fi / fantasy / horror writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia) is FINALLY at New West library, I go to pick it up today. Jeff has biz in town so I’m hoping to do a brief tour of the retailers of New West to pick up a couple of essentials as well as the book

People are LOVING my Christmas arts! It’s pleasant to have had some fun with it.

Jan M MADE ME AND JEFF MASKS FOR CHRISTMAS!!! along with a card of a giraffe – her consulting animal – covered in scarves – lol – and the interior MERRY FUCKING XMAS which is absolutely lovely.

 

rain rain

So the rain of course prevented any chance to see the Geminids; another year no streaks in the sky. Sigh.

Had an EEG yesterday. Taxi there and back (easier now I know with all the fucking construction down on Columbia for blocks around RCH where the taxi stand is.) The part where your hair is coated in slimy goo and it’s time for you to go home was suboptimal, and I didn’t like closing my eyes while a strobe light flashed (I was having trouble talking for about two hours after that – felt like a migraine coming on but I was fine after.) Results over Christmas will take two weeks at minimum, so I’ve diarized to call the doc at year end and find out whether the results are back, then to make an appointment.

I feel very stupid for how much I babbled at the tech. Am I that hard up for company? (nods head yes sadly) I realized what I was doing and asked her questions about her kid and her Christmas after a while and she’s got a toddler who’s bitey so I commiserated with her. Keith had a bitey phase, and passed through it with speed, but Katie was straight up mean about it just as she was coming up on a year and man, when you’re nursing it just sucks so bad. I didn’t mention that though.

I should have had a shower as soon as I got home but I delayed it until I realized that I was going to be showering while Jeff was attempting to sleep. Didn’t sing in the shower for a change, but it’s still noisy. Sorry about that brO.

Finally cleaned the veggie ichor out of the fridge so the kitchen is a much happier place to be. Today I make a vegan veggie pizza for Jeff, he wants to see if it’s different without the milk powder.

The fridge is full of tasty Indian food (the channa masala and palak paneer are so yummy) and there’s a pile of veggie samosas NOM and so the rest of the day was quite nice.

Grocery shop yesterday.

Wrote two songs yesterday. I’m about to go downstairs and see if they actually stuck in my brain.

Booked to record at a studio in New West on January 4. This year upcoming is going to be a challenge, and I hope to meet it.

Re-reading Sweetie’s House of Tentacles – my UPSUN in universe porn novel. I’d forgotten how sweet and funny it is, also how much poor Slider gets misgendered. Worked on The Best Roommate in the World – it’s now 2200 words long, if you can believe it. Poor Jesse, trying to move when he’s still recovering from the last stupid thing a sixer did to get him nearly killed.

2021 – the year of living ancestorily

So for 2021, this blog is going to change up a bit. There will be at least one drafted post that goes live every day. (I’ve started pre-posting awready.)  The hope is that I will put together useful or historical facts or just … information that’s easy to find arranged by subject PLUS post a song every day.

Now this involves many different KINDS of posts; some will be PDF’s, some MP3s, some videos, but there will be a song a day. I thought about posting it to youtube, but…. it’s a toxic waste dump that I have virtually no control over. And yes, some of the song posts will be from previous posts, but there will be a particular category: Song a Day 2021

And then, if I have the energy, I’ll write about laundry and cooking and grandson goo and boring domestic shit and progress on my writing projects — that none care about but me.

The point is that I am going to highlight my lifetime of achievement because I’m tired of always thinking to myself that I haven’t accomplished anything in my life. Taken all together, why yes I have. I was autistic and had ADD and mental health issues the whole time, too.

I’m considering password protecting my content or at least some of it, and I’m considering moving the blog to a VPS, after non-definitive discussion with Jeff.

I’m also thinking about money and immortality, a lot, but it’s nothing bad. I just want to eat steak for a thousand years while I drink beer and write nasty shit about misogynist slurs like Jordan Peterson.

By the way mOm the cat poets are Lu You and Liu Zhongyin

Not going outside

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thinking of continuing the dietary excess

I am not prepared to publicly say what I’d do for an xlarge doble doble and a honey dip right now.

There’s fantastic (potential) family news right now about housing for the Planet Bachelor people. A house rental apartment a block from the school? CAN SUCH THINGS BE? Alex gets his own room PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE and the atheist wears out her knees.

it can’t be Christmas without dietary excess

maybe we’ll just have sausage stuffing and gravy and skip all the bird for Christmas dinner… I threatened it and Jeff just said you cook it, I’ll eat it

anyway walked to the pharmacy for my next three months of bp meds and hit the seven eleven on the way back and went a teensy bit nuts

I mailed five envelopes with art and letters in them. I think of the people who will get them and how they will feel about them when they arrive, or what sorts of things they will do. Will they make a cup of tea first or will they rip it open and read it?

check it out:

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Sign on a board QUOTE OF THE DAY Remember when we cried as kids and our parents said ‘I’ll give you something to cry about?’ = We thought they were going to smack us, but instead they destroyed the housing market, quadrupled college tuition fees, melted the ice caps and voted Brexit.’ – Anon

Why do I feel like I got nothing done yesterday

I actually did, but when I go back to talk about it, it’s just an ordinary day.

I made art! I practiced my instruments! I worked on a long poem! I wrote 200 words on The Best Roommate in the World! I mailed letters and put some art in envelopes to friends!

I also paid zero attention to my diet and didn’t take a nap. I found out that the hair that’s disappeared out of my pony tail is all from one side, so I’m going to put up two pony tails to try to stop the abrasion on one side. I thought I was losing hair, but this is something else.

I did an art called Festive Season #3

All the “Festive Season” arts are going to be the same – exactly the same digitized snowflakes, but the colour banding is going to be different and I put digital glitter on some of them. Don’t worry, it’s extremely tasteful, because glitter IRL is Satan prancing like an ex in his undies through your engagement garden party, and the digital stuff stays the heck where you put it.

So I went to https://www.misha.studio/snowflaker/ (select grid) and then you get a grid like the foregoing of snerflerks, all different degrees of pointiness. Then I grabbed it with Grab, fired it up in paintbrush (thus the ENTIRE lack of subtlety.) I believe that it’s striking in a ‘what the hell kind of pride flag is that anyhoo?” sort of way. The snowflakes you select will be different. Who’s a special snowflake? Why all of us, all of us, my dears.

I’m wanting to train crows. It is a sad blemish on my character.

All I want to do is eat cinnamon pizza and drink tea.

We got IHOP takeout for breakfast. I have actually had a pretty productive day – three more pieces of mail. I won’t say they’re letters, they’re art like, you know, that thing up there at the top of the post, aka Festive season #3.