Category: UPSUN series

Better days are coming

Superb night of sleep, I think I’m managing my drugs much better. It was almost six when I woke up!

Curvebeak greeted me from the neighbour’s roof the other day. Very strange to be recognized by a crow.

Of course they bloody well recognize me. The hazelnuts turn out to be contaminated with something I’m allergic to, so I’m feeding them to them a handful at a time and snork snork snork down they go. This being the season when they’re bringing off young ready access to quality food close to the nest is going to be a big deal.

Buster is not happy that I’m feeding crows, but he’d still rather train than sit on the deck with his tail switching, waiting for them.

Timmy Ho’s coffee in mah belleh, I should feel shame but all I really feel is a strong urge to write a scene I’ve been putting off for about three weeks.

TIME TO GO DANCING

Roborative sleep

not, ha ha, rebarbative. Don’t get those two words mixed up.

Jesse and Slider are going to go dancing. Outside, in the summer, at night. I am putting together a playlist, which include Serena Ryder’s “Ice Age”. I heard it this morning as muzak at the Save-On and as I listened I thought, you know for a pop song this is actually tolerable (lyrically and musically). Then I find out she’s Canadian and won Juno awards and is part Trini and part Indigenous and I thought, yeah, okay. Definitely going on the playlist.

Jeff didn’t come, he’s buried in work at the moment. I thought about stopping off for a coffee at Timmy Ho’s but decided to come straight home, and I’m glad I did.

The Kaossilator, which has had a whole ALBUM done on it alone (this is one tune) is continuing to provide me with entertainment.

JUST at the point the battery starts to die, it makes ABSOLUTELY incredible noises, since it hangs and starts to loop (especially in the voice effects, I’m not entirely sure why). The effects can be everything from sinister to gutbusting. Hope to do something with that some day, in terms of home recording.

Hives came back, it’s definitely the nuts. Good to know!

Bison can hop like bunnies, who knew.

 

 

az vax now available for me and Jeff

The question is do I want it, given that the most effective way to take it is 12 to 24 weeks apart!? This is the question facing Tammy too, and I guess the answer is yes.

Time to do something more useful than stare at a screen while I thinking about it

Honey on the moon needs to go to the moon soon. 42K words (I been busy….)

 

 

oh how am I to speak the truth with love to you

otherwise known as the story of my fucking life

I initiated contact with a loved one, I got what I deserved. I am a sadder and wiser person. I have cried more tears, but that’s okay. You have to be alive to cry.

I reached out to other loved ones. Both responded more or less instantly, helps that it’s midday Sunday, I guess. They got a hand under me apiece with their soft words and kindness and then I told, hopefully briefly enough, the source of my woes to Jeff. I tried to watch March Madness with him but I’m too fidgety.

Please be nice to the people you love by asking them what constitutes nice for them. And then… behaving that way. You can’t be nice to a person who interprets your every breath as hostile.

I have a headache from crying and I need to stop looking at a screen but between that word and this I’ve put in 812 words on my novel. Watching history repeat itself is so hard, but being history is worse.

Wrote a letter to Lois.

I’m going to have the last of Mike’s congee, watch an Elementary with Jeff and CRASH.

Prince Philip isn’t dead

I announced his death on my blog but it was just wishful thinking.

He’s probably got many minutes of rich life left in him.

I very much enjoyed having home made mac and cheese for breakfast.

I need to spread the joy of biscotti this am.

700 words on UPSUN

I have a doc’s appointment for my prescription renewal tomorrow, and I have called the clinic to confirm my scan appointment. I won’t get a call back unless they’re confused about something.

various

I have figured out how the rest of this chapter is going to go, but I’m taking a break. Poor Slider, holding the balance in their hands!

Right foot arch hurts so much that standing, walking, are terrible. I wore non arch support shoes for one day of running around and look what it got me, I’m gimped up fierce mama.

Biscotti is in the oven for the second bake; first bake items are sitting around looming like in the kitchen. First batch will be off to the Lunders hopefully today.

Kaossilator notes: S.60 300 bpm ga10  RG1 c´   Describe triangles in the upper half of the playing board very deliberately. Result is called ” Approaching the Derelict Slowly from An Abundance of Caution “

current total

29K words. I think it was down around 18K last time I checked in, but just so you know I’m writing like a mad fool. It’s not quite to graphomania states but right up there, a thousand words a day (graphomania for me is more than 2500 words more than four days running.)

It’s all dialogue, infodumps and emotions including an extremely truncated and not graphic sex scene.

The list is long

That’s a quote from Eric Frank Russell’s “WASP”.

Anyway, today:

11149 words so far on Best Roommate

Jeff cleaned 25 gigs of crap off my hard disk, so I can reinstall Finale FINALLY.
Isn’t English hilarious?

I will also try to update my OS PRAY FOR ME NOW SINNERS

I drank coffee. I POOOOOOOOOOPED and pooped again. I feel so light and free although I should probably put up a biohazard sign.

And I trained Buster, who was not having any. He has his little ways to let me know he’d prefer to run and chase treats than beg for them.

I wrote a letter to my pOp and one to Alex. There’s a little card with artwork on it in pOp’s letter, and Alex’s letter is covered in garish watercolour pencil art. Tomorrow I’ll write a letter to Mary and send some fabric from mOm’s stash along to Jan Maxwell, who already has a ton of fabric BUT DOES NOT HAVE the last little bit of sexy raygun SF fabric and will likely turn it into comfy masks in the fullness of time, whereas I won’t, likely. Although I do have a fabric project for the spring – I’m going to put a floor length door drape on my bedroom door, with black lace fabric at the bottom to let the cold air in from the air con.

Last night:

Composed three instrumentals (soundtrack style stuff) on the Kaossilator. With luck I will record them on the 1st with Anthony. One of the instrumentals is entitled: Unicorn Farts. It’s plausible….

Slept 8 hours solid. Haven’t done that in an age. No recollection of waking up until I had to pee at 4:30. Amazing how a little exercise gives me better rest, surprise surprise.

Yesterday:

Jeff dropped me off at Planet Bachelor that was (Keith is teasing me to come up with a new name, which will be some variant on “The Bachelor System” or “Bachelor Villa” or “Villa Planet” or “Larval Harpi” which is an anagram of what it says out front… yup, the house has a name. “Planet Bachelor II – The Rehoming” is also in play. We shall find out soon enough.) I helped Keith and Katie clean for a couple of hours (polishing chrome in the bathroom, taking a duster to all the cobwebs, a little bit with counters in the kitchen, throwing stuff in the trash), then mailed some letters and walked to the butcher shop and got meat and a couple of blueberry handpies for Jeff. Walking home nearly killed me. I had to stop to catch my breath three times, although I didn’t get into that heart pounding thing. (later…. Caspell Junction it is, according to K&K)

Much pedicurage, following a nice warming bath. I have to keep an eye on my left great toe, I trimmed the nail too much and I’m looking at much pain if I don’t manage how it grows out.

Recently:

Preposted 15 songs. Most are in January and February but I’ve posted well into the year when the song is associated with a particular date. I’m now up to the middle of February and so I have a little breathing room before I have to really start shaking out the oeuvre to keep up the numbers. Still have more MP3s sitting on the media drive, but now the real pressure is to record more. And more yet. I’m one tenth done. This is a bastarding huge project.

Watched Ammonite. Loved it. If you don’t like the idea of watching Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet make out at night in a miniscule bed while collecting and cleaning fossils during the day in Victorian costume including a magnificent rendition of full mourning, stay the hell away from this movie.

Rewatched King Arthur (Owen/Knightley version) again, after watching the King Arthur Time Team Special. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that movie. It’s not the best historical movie ever made, but it’s so good hearted and solid and there are so many wonderful actors in it that it’s just a treat. It’s going on the ‘watch anytime’ list.

Most recent episode of the Expanse has one of the best human vs space sequences I’ve ever seen. Dominique Tipper is absolutely amazing as she battles time, vacuum, gravity, CO2, betrayal, her own physical weakness after a trauma, and the complete sabotage of her ship, in order to prevent the death of her loved ones. The sequence went on for so long I started crying along with her frustration.

Continue to feed crows in the morning if they sit in the dogwood and caw at me. 1 to 4 birds usually show up. Watched them chase off a raven yesterday. The rest of the day it’s canoodly crow couples pitching woo in the tree, it’s quite funny…

It was supposed to start snowing last night. Nada. It’s bucketing snow down now; the world’s gone quiet because it’s Sunday morning and snowing. Now, if I really loved my brother I’d get off my ass, clear the kitchen counters and make him some whole wheat flower rolls. And I’m thinking of making little pork meatballs in spaghetti sauce for hot sammiches using those rolls.

power failures

3 in one 24 hour period. Killed one of Jeff’s router power supplies. Resetting clocks over and over. Power failures feel weird now; like we’re prepping for the big one, like civil unrest is ‘about’.

Funny tale of waking up: I tossed my fluffy hoody into a laundry hamper but when I woke up this morning it looked like a sandworm head coming out of the floor and I almost squawked in terror.

Biscotti in oven for Tom. I cleaned the racks and wiped down the interior of the oven, it’s started to smell oily and smoky. Soon, Time Team (we’re in the last season unhappy sigh) and running the dishwasher and the rest of the day gets underway.

Total word count 9189 on Best Roommate. In this latest bit, Amorfo came to pick up the sproing and scared the living shit of Keegan.

Watched the movie Synchronic. I liked it – there are some visuals that were quite striking and the basic concept is interesting. It is a B movie – very earnest and low key. The final shot has an element of ambiguity, but it also contains friendship, which is kind of the point. Anthony Mackie is quite good.

I blew an incredible kazoo solo this morning. I can only ask an intemperate universe that Jeff had his gd headphones on.

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.

Two Daves

Two letters written but not posted today; it’s a Two Dave day.

Jeff’s just asked me to go downstairs and watch a Time Team. Hope it’s something Saxon or Roman. L8r Nope, medieval and Tudor. But really interesting if you’re crazy about remodelling castles for successive waves of improvements in warfare, boom goes the gunpowder.

Alex was here recently and I’m just remembering him being happy about getting a tube shot on the Xenon game and it made me happy in consequence.

Buster was past damp into dripping wet, and filthy when he came back in this morning…. must be horrible to have to clean that crap off with your teeth and mouth blech.

Indian food delivered last night. I was very happy with the quality and quantity for the price. It’s a new place (8 months?)  that does pizza and Desi food Pasifika style, which is like, so Vancouver, it hurts.

Chuck Yeager, RIP. His autobiography is most entertaining.

Letter from Onty Mary, and I’m so glad she enjoyed the paper art I put in with a recent letter, that was cheering.

Today has been set aside for One Grim Task. I do not want this task. I do not want the cascade of tasks that will flow from this One Grim Task. I AM DISGUST, SON.

It’s 10:20 in the morning and I am still not nerved up for this gd task. I am actually hitting the old moral GPS for a recalc from my new position and fuck me if it’s not taking a bit longer than any reasonable person might expect. What is it that a reasonable person following Stoic principles might expect? I said I’d write first PHEW AN OUT, I HAVE AN OUT.

With that I must now turn my attention to the real writing I need to do today, otherwise known as Quarantine Porn. And that works whether I’m talking about the UPSUN universe or my rapidly-winding-down interest in writing porny Supernatural fanfic. (Not all of it’s porn, some of it’s just fluff.)

And if I’m not going to write that, I have to go back out into the kitchen and either work some more on The Dark Book – current section is “the Calendar” and it’s fucking MOLOCH this and MOLOCH that, as he drives his diesel dick through history and messes us all up, it’s just standard issue eschatology schlock, that’s part of the point of the poem though, disjointing the specifically English language over and past and through its various levels of inanity, legalism and perverse vagueness through to a new horrific understanding about what ‘end times’ actually means for the people living through it, and you are among those people, and what the hell is this poem anyway (this last aside for my parents, who have long since given up on trying to understand what it is I’m babbling about and reached this question much earlier) — or work on my master grocery list, and I finally figured how I can get what my grocery list looks like in my head to my actual grocery list that I use every week and reinforces how I visualize and operate in the world, but I haven’t done it yet. So I have work to do to advance this project, which will assist me cognitively as my brain declines and I’m still shopping, and which may have applications for other seniors and TBI sufferers. (I certainly wasn’t able to find anything like it on line.) So yeah, projects, in order, depending on what I’m up for mood and skill wize.

Yup, I’m going to wander off and reconfigure my reality right now, be back in a day for an update or sooner if something interesting happens.

One last thing, the ‘writing light’ in the kitchen died and I asked for help from Jeff  (my shoulder’s frozen…. that was weird, realizing it) and he touched the apparently dead compact fluorescent and it illuminated and it made me think of pOp. Also Jeff is quietly amazing, the best kind.

An accompaniment to ‘the sproing’

ImageJenny L Davis academic details

@ChickashaJenny – we currently follow each other on twitter but that may change, since I’m curating my list pretty much constantly and sometimes if I think I’ve been too greedy of an Indigenous person’s time I quit following them to stop the damage.
anyway, what the hell is a sproing?
Glad you asked. Sadly, this device is fictional, and part of the UPSUN universe, but oh how I wish it warn’t.

Text of the user guide:

All my relations.

In English, this device is called a sproing.

The sproing was made by sixers for Indigenous peoples to reclaim their stolen heritage from museums, businesses, collections and private homes.

There is technology in it which makes it demand to be used.

It will self-destruct or become inert if not used for its purpose, because it assumes that when it stops reclaiming Indigenous treasures that it is in the hands of colonial powers who wish to understand its secrets. We can’t say how it makes these decisions, just that we’ve seen it demonstrated.

When you’re done with it — may that day come soon — think of where to leave it. If you decide never to use it, you will still have to leave it somewhere.

If it self-destructs it may reach temperatures of 850 degrees C. Think of this object as a person who is a tool who is a bomb.

DO NOT LEAVE IT IN YOUR HOMES. You have been warned. The smoke causes lung and skin damage to human beings, plants and animals. Sitting it on dirt or stones with a metal box over it is best when it’s not being used.

It is wise to ensure that anyone who will be using the sproing speaks to it first. The sproing doesn’t have speech recognition, but it becomes used to certain people and is much less likely to behave strangely if it hears familiar voices. Speak to it before you pick it up.

Since it will open almost any door, it exists in opposition to capitalism and so it’s always dangerous for you to carry. Thieves, cops, the military, journalists, spies and sixer technology cultists all want this object. If you are not the right person to use it, give it to one of your people who is honest and fearless, and let them use it instead.

The sproing will open almost all key-locked doors and the fobbinator half of all doors managed with a key fob. If it doesn’t work, don’t make a second attempt. Second attempts may bring on the self-destruct, as the sproing assumes the person using it is without the necessary self-discipline to use it safely.

Please treat the sproing with honour and leave it in the sun, directly on the ground, during ceremony, to the extent you can. It will run longer if you do.

The sproing is capable of independent movement. It won’t happen often but they have been known to follow people they like for several hundred meters before they lose interest.

No visible record of the sproing  – of any kind – should be made, which is why there is no illustration in this document. Songs and ceremonies are OK.

Do not leave it close to bonfires, as there is more than one report of sproings being attracted to large fires. Under no circumstances try to pull it out of the fire; alert everyone and move away with your backs turned, and keep moving. Although it appears to be made of metal, it is non-magnetic and non-ferrous. If you are foolish enough to try to take it through a customs-enforced airport and you are asked what it is, it’s a paperweight.

Operation.

The side marked “S” is the sproing side. Place the “S” as close to the keyhole as possible and push gently. The sproing will ‘kick’ once, and extrude and push the key into the hole. You can still pull it out at this time and whatever is extended will retract.

Push again and the key will ‘halt in place’ or advise you of failure by vibrating four times. If it works, you won’t be able to remove the sproing until the door has been unlocked and locked again. Turn the sproing as if it was a key and open the door. Return to starting position to remove sproing.

Push three times rapidly if the sproing jams after you’ve returned it to the starting position; this triggers forced retraction.

The “F” side is the fobbinator side. Hold as if it was a fob next to the sensor and wait. If it doesn’t work, it will vibrate, hard, four times. Don’t try it again!

Do not use the sproing lightly or without a clear understanding of your responsibilities as you use it. It is normal for the sproing to change colour over time. This will take the appearance of bleaching or darkening from the original gunmetal colour. If you treat the sproing properly, within a short time it will be the colour of the soil of your territories.

Memorize these instructions and burn them.

I referred to a Trumpenista today as a ‘cognitive foundling’ and I’m particular pleased with that locution.