Category: Writing

not a peep

Didn’t hear a peep out of anyone at the Junction yesterday. Fine, I was probably not in good enough shape to be useful and they had other plans.

Somebody was busy last night; fewer stories because these are the long ones.

Brain is adequate this morning but nothing better. SO MANY FOOD WORDS on the NY Times Wordle these days, it’s been food words for a week now, bagel and ramen etc. I’m out of some Rx in a few days and as usual don’t have a Doc appt until after I run out. I don’t imagine it will be a problem, pharmacists have been known to save the day.

SCHNITZEL last night, also this morning. I left a tiny little piece as a snack for later. The greek salad was very good too. I’m finding the ‘not eating anything solid after about 5 pm’ diet is working fine.

I think I made very fine coffee this am. I am enjoying it.

lost my mind

obviously someone stayed up ALL NIGHT reading my fics. Well, there are more to come so that’s nice.

 

 

I tried to help Paul with something yesterday and all I managed to do was upset him, Jeff, and myself, and Katie called to ask what the hell happened, and I feel SO USELESS AND CLUELESS but Lois is here and I hope it all gets straightened out. I lost my cheese and someone who’s blameless suffered.  I am assuming it will all get straightened out but I imagine both my kids think I’m an asshole right now. I did apologize most fervently to Paul but it was probably too little too late.

 

I was feeling very sorry for myself and then I found out that some kind whistleblower just dumped 100 Gb of Tesla crash data. My response. Yes it’s supposed to be disturbing.

it’s been an age since I got a comment

This is everything to me. My attention to detail got someone’s attention. I MUST SPEAK TRUTH ABOUT DETROIT IRON OR RECEIVE THE DISAPPROBATION OF MY FATHER.

Ain’t lyin….

 

I loved so much about this story, but the thing I held closest to my heart was: Finally! Someone who realizes you couldn’t get air conditioning or a tape deck stock in a 67 impala.

Lovely walk with Paul yesterday, followed by distributing treats from Cobbs Bread and some sorting of his clothes. He asked me to help with the family photographs and then refused to let me help…. it was weird but okay. Ryker was A FREAKING MESS I am pretty sure he has allergies, he ran like a snottap the entire time I was there, and was seconds from crying the entire time, but I did interact with him when he wasn’t crying and stopped him from hucking his slippers downstairs.

How did I have a lovely walk with Paul? I didn’t talk, except to respond to him kindly and truthfully. And we sat and listened to birdsong for a good half hour, in companionable silence. I didn’t give him much help with sorting but it was some.

Brain is not good this morning. Wordle in 3. Scotoma dragons for an hour.

The Guyanese-descent gent I follow on twitter said something about how if you think brown people can’t be racist you haven’t met his extended family. SO I COMMENTED. Perhaps I should not have.  (mOm remember how I have Richie IMMEDIATELY comment sotto voce as to the ethnicity of a Black man he meets – including how long he’s been in Canada? when I was living in Toronto with my first husband it AMAZED ME how many Black people I met had very distinct and not always pleasant or pleasantly phrased opinions about where other people from the Terrible African Enslavement Diaspora were from and what kinds of personal behaviour, style of dress etc. we could expect from them…. stuff that made my little white middle class mind EXPLOOOOOODE) So my response to my Guyanese twitter ami was that of course brown people can be racist! BUT THEY WON’T BE WITHOUT COLONIALISM. The very distinct layercake of Guyanese life with the Amerindians (their term not mine, it’s racist TWO DIFFERENT WAYS and of course they should be spoken of by Indigenous nationality, language or cultural bonds) at the bottom and the descendants of the Black enslaved persons next up and then the Desi and Desi-blend folks (white people exist as tourists in Guyana, less than .5% are white AND THE CHINESE PEOPLE ARE LUMPED IN DEMOGRAPHICALLY WITH THE WHITE PEOPLE, CHEW ON THAT FOR A WHILE (I mean imagine it in Vancouver LOLOL)) resulted specifically from slavery and importation of guest workers and the distinct modern assignment of racial opprobrium flows from that.

As for Guyanese people, in my observations of the Caribbean hierarchy they: “Think they’re better than everyone else because they cling to decades-rotten colonial forms and ceremonies, drink way too much, fucking suck at cricket, and dress like bums.” Get a Bahamian to comment on Jamaicans some time, it’s like dropping Mentos in a Coke bottle. Believe it or not apart from the drinking too much I’ve heard all of these (re Guyanese) comments in person, and the drinking comment is based on the demonstrable fact that Guyana and Suriname (its neighbour and colonial sibling thanks to the Dutch) have much higher alcoholism and binge drinking rates than any of the closest Caribbean countries, and the alcoholism is supported by the unbelievably cheap and plentiful rum from the sugar cane plantations …. that came with colonialism. So no matter which end of the drunkard’s walk that is my approach to ranting you grab WE ARE GOING TO END UP AT COLONIALISM.

If asked to comment as to why 35 percent of Russian men have a drinking problem – the worst stat on earth for alcohol currently – I think I’m going to splay my hands and smile. Traumatized people self-medicate, amiright. Also, to be entirely fair, Canada’s alcoholism rate is higher – by 3 % – than Guyana’s. Just Saying. Also if you want an example of sexual dimorphism, the difference in the alcoholism rate in Russia between men and women is so huge it looks like a typo. Source worldpopulationreview

pollen so bad

My eyes are not actually dry but they are very gummy. My nasopharyngeal parts are gummy too. I’m not coughing but my chest feels tight. (AQI good pollen counts moderate)

Tried Fatburger yesterday. White Spot is superior in virtually all ways, and not that much more expensive.

I miss my grandsons. Spoke to Keith yesterday. No word on whether Janice has left.

Watched John Wick Chapter 4. The clunkiness of the script poses a bit of a challenge but the fight scenes were exactly the way I like them and Donnie Yen was fucking perfect as always. (I mean how do you get typecast as a blind martial artist??? by being fucking good at it.) IT’S A COMMITMENT it’s like 3 hours long. All action movies should be ninety minutes or so. It is a law. Unobserved, sadly.

I am continuing to practice la la la on the ukulele. My brain appears to work okay today.

I am continuing to wrestle with edits on TB. The last pass was to make sure that every word of every line of dialogue in the first part is a) to the education level b) in character c) germane d) unmagical (ie there is a plausible way the character could know it to say it). I suppose editing dialogue without cementing the plot bunnies in place is useless & pointless (deck chairs, Titanic, Augean stables, etc.) but still I endeavour to persevere in the worst way possible – which was standing up in a hammock last time I checked.

Elon Musk is going to turn Ron DeKrampus loose on twitter in an effort to help him get elected.

I don’t get these people, but I guess I don’t have to.

For the first time, Russian nationals fighting for Ukraine have made incursions and captured enemy weapons and tanks inside the Russian border. What impact that will have to escalate the war is anyone’s guess.

 

 

a little sad but also relieved

I note that our trip to Victoria this weekend is not going to happen, and I’m sad, but the hours of waiting with two bored children have been avoided, and that makes me relieved. Seeing on twitter that early morning vessels are cancelled due to crew shortages just adds to the feeling of horror escaped.

Saw The Artifice Girl yesterday. It has issues (the way auteur movies often do – Franklin Ritch wrote, directed, edited and starred in it) but as a full-court practical, emotional and philosophical examination of AI it works very hard and delivers its message with verve and precision.

Tatum Matthews as the title character, ‘Cherry’, is absolutely pitch-perfect. If you’re looking for an action fest, this is the exact opposite, it’s a very talky movie. SF movies like this are uncommon and should be seen. It’s also a feminist film, in unsettling ways. Combatting child sexual exploitation and trafficking is everyone’s business and the idea of making it an AI’s business and that it represents a moral hazard to the AI (in the film) is brilliant in my view.

Anyway, it accomplishes its goals and I’ll be thinking of a couple of scenes a lot over the next few days.

 

Hey mOm another character has entered the frame on TB. Her name is Lucie and she’s Omar’s step-niece. You’ll meet her in a couple of months I imagine.

Shifting emphasis

I’m thinking keep the blog but make it just the release point for a podcast (with a complete and accurate transcript so visually impaired and deaf people can consume it) on a regular schedule. I have some ideas. LOL. I am, after all, an idea factory. I’m making a list of episode subjects and am considering various formats.

I don’t know why, but I’m thinking of a film made in Africa (I was 18, forgive me if I didn’t keep my class notes about which country it was filmed in and I can’t find anything in Wikipedia.) In it, the present day in a bustling city is depicted in colour; but his fantasies about becoming rich and immigrating are in black and white. I remember at the time being much struck by the emotional resonance of this; that your fantasies are so shopworn as to no longer be vibrant, and as a visual metaphor for the protagonist’s internal life I’ve rarely seen the equal.

We finished “One Day as a Lion”. mOm, picture Totally Boned if it was a het couple and set in the hottest ass end of Oklahoma (and people get shot…). I personally loved it (there were so many little beaut touches), Jeff was so so and said the script needed a punch up and the ending was too abrupt (both valid comments.) It is TOTALLY an ‘instant family Harlequin Romance with dead bodies.”

I forgive Scott Caan (son of James) his ‘career’ as a rapper (I believe I have made CLEAR my opinion of white rappers who did not come up in the business credibly integrated with Black ones) if he can produce little bloodstained film confections like this.

I have to do my Lumosity and get dressed, Jeff wants to do a schlep this morning. We don’t normally go on the weekend. Just checked to make sure they’re open at 7, since we hardly ever go on Sunday (the organic homo is usually all gone.)

As predicted air quality (the Alberta fires) is moderately bad (60 and variable) and today’s going to be the hottest day of this heat wave so don’t do a goddamned thing outside today. Just sayin.

Efforts to teach Buster to count to three are going badly. All he does is start salivating when I count to three, since that means I’m about to drop some treats on his little tuffet. Considering that other people’s pets do things like speculate as to whether a new human baby brother will cry when being stuck in the car seat I feel sad until he commands me to pet him, at which point I calm down.

 

full free and frank

Keith’s coming over for lunch today. I plan tacos (meat and veggie options) and shirazi salad. He offered to cook but I thought I’d do it. We’ll be talking housing plans.

Buster is wandering in and out of my room like he is hearing rats in the walls. Burnaby is having a HELLA BIG YEAR for rats, and big rats too. C’mon down coyotes.

Loooook! what someone did to the lawn in Bath. For the Coronation you know. I am planning on live-blogging King Chuckles’ Magic Grease Anointment Do. I have no idea why, probably because I didn’t get to see the most recent Coronation and because I’m hoping –– like I rarely hope for anything –– that this is the last one that ever happens. The idea that Camilla, one of the cruellest, most grasping and graceless women to ever wear a racist pin to meet her new daughter in law in, (yup, she wore a family heirloom Negrohead pin to meet Meghan, if you can credit it) will be (deep nauseated breath) ‘my queen’ is EVEN WORSE than Carolus Wrecks being (deep nauseated breath) ‘my king’.

A PENIS MOWED INTO THE LAWN AT BATH IN PREPARATION FOR THE CORONATION OF CAROLUS WRECKS THIRD OF HIS ILK SHORT AND UNCOMFY MAY HE REIGN

I wrote this for him this morning:

Famous for lying ’bout love and sex
Carolus Wrecks, Carolus Wrecks
Less famous than his gorgeous ex
Carolus Wrecks, Carolus Wrecks
They hand him his pen, they hand him his specs
Carolus Wrecks, Carolus Wrecks
The laughing stock of his ‘subjects’
Carolus Wrecks, Carolus Wrecks

list is getting ticked

Happy St. Sitha (Zita) Day, patron saint of domestic work, domestic workers, and lost keys. Here she is from a church wall in Norfolk UK.

Feast day April 27, St. Sitha patron of domestic work, workers and lost keys, winks at us from a church wall in Norfolk UK

Laundry is done and I’ll go back to folding it when I’ve finished posting. No Lumosity yet, wordle in three (the word made me laugh out loud because it is NOT a word I personally am associated with, like, at all). Five kudos from one person on AO3 last night… I mean woman did you SLEEP that was like 50K words LOL…. Almonds are in the oven for toasting and the timer is set to explode (finally have a LOUD kitchen timer) in an hour. I have started selecting my clothes to be packed. I’ve been practicing my instruments every day, I keep starting on and then refusing to write down any of the gags for a standup routine (part of it involving a ‘tactical ukulele’ which describes the second uke Mike bought me), I wrote 899 words yesterday on the fic and about 40 on TB. Dejunking has slowed but not stopped. Played Original Green Tetris on the Tetris website yesterday and I have to say I prefer newer versions LOL. I’ve booked my next flu/covid shots with the pharmacy.

I send a special family hug to Leo and Linda this am (they are always sharing pictures of their family in the background with me and it helps me stay connected to their fam and I really appreciate it) and a big long rocking hug for Dave, who is mourning his kitty and will be for a while. He still has Pippin, but Mookie was a real character.

Here’s a list of free websites that are apparently useful from boing boing dot com this morning. I’ve only had a good look at witeboard and untools but intend to explore more:

  1. Witeboard: https://witeboard.com 6
  2. Blush: https://blush.design 5
  3. Carrd: https://carrd.co 7
  4. What runs: https://www.whatruns.com 7
  5. Coverr: https://coverr.co 5
  6. Flourish: https://flourish.studio 7
  7. Untools: https://untools.co 10
  8. Lumen5: https://lumen5.com 10

Just in case anyone is thinking of me, please don’t get me anything for Mother’s Day that doesn’t involve tasty food I didn’t cook.

Still very much enjoying Medium and we’ve started The Diplomat and are LOVING it. But it’s (ratchet ratchet ratchet sound in the background) berloddy tense.

Off to Paul’s today

Going to help with packing and take us for a walk.

Wordle in 5, 1646 words on ‘The Instructor’ yesterday, with none expected today because of my errands. Lumosity one top score the rest abysmal dreck. I made myself coffee and toasted a sourdough muffin. I’m pretty well used to not keeping cream in the house any more, sigh; my liver has thanked me.

Bakhmut’s still under siege. Putin visited military headquarters in Kherson and Zelenskyy visited the front in Avdiivka.

China’s mediated the first progress in the Yemen war in years; Saudi Arabia and Iran may reopen embassies. Given that 60% of Yemeni deaths since 2015 are directly attributable to the war (via food insecurity and zero health care) and that a million people there have been affected by the cholera epidemic the faster peace comes the better and I don’t care who brokers it.

There’s a yummy beef and tomato and onions mix for wraps in the fridge and also a very nice lentil tofu stew. Sounds bland, but with turmeric, ginger, half a lime, cumin, black pepper, cayenne and plenty garlic it’s anything but. The tofu got cooked in a spice mix but it all ended up incorporated in the stew and it is quite yummy. A bit salty for the diet because for all the veggie ingredients leading one to think it’s vegan, I cooked it in chicken stock (I didn’t want it going bad in the fridge).

Twitter is being really weird and gross and they just took the bans off dead-naming trans people (using what they were named at birth rather than their chosen name for transition) and it’s OPEN SEASON on trans people in a way that was obvious enough before but is now a tidal wave of bigoted speech. Trust trans people to know their own gender enough that you do not need to question them about it.

seven percent of parents regret having children.

one percent of trans people regret transitioning.

IT’S A VERY SUCCESSFUL SOCIO-MEDICAL PROCEDURE, quit second guessing trans people and spending all your chocolate coin attention on the ‘poor parents’ who have been ‘cheated’ of the ‘child they were meant to have’ BLEUCH I hate people who think like that NONE OF US FUCKING GET THE KID WE WANT we get the kid we get and whining about it is rude to everyone and makes you look like a gurning nithing. (gur-ning nye-ðing aka a facepulling poltroon)

I slept GREAT but not ENOUGH so I imagine I’ll be napping this afternoon.

So tempted to write Elizabeth Holmes in jail and mock the living shit out of her but better people have more claim to my time LOL. She honestly believed that people like her can’t go to jail well just ask Martha Stewart she did five months and is still proclaiming her innocence.

did NOT make wordle this morning

That was sad. I mean I was actually upset for a moment. Two top fives in Lumosity, 1189 words on the fanfic. Coffee has been consumed, the day has begun.

Confirmed that we’ll be at Barry and Jackie’s overnight after Jim’s memorial. It conflicts with a Bahá’í festival but that’s just our luck – everything always happens on the same day.

SCORE! the weed joint had Trainwreck. I named a fanfic after the strain before I’d even gotten to try it but the weed sommeliers were not lying – absolute gem of a strain – calm blissful body buzz and zero anxiety.

Today I’m going to try to do health oriented things, get some letters in the mail, call a couple of friends, do some more sorting for the yard sale – matters of that nature. I can be upset or I can try to make progress and they don’t usually go together.

Charge your devices! Natural and infrastructure disasters are always only a tick of the clock away!

DeSantis threatening to build ‘another theme park’ to compete with Disney is extremely funny since as far as I know the only two documents he has any interest in are the Bible and the Constitution and neither of them have any fuckin’ IP. What’s he gonna do, ask Veggie Tales to put up the money?

Today’s Trotsky Tuesday guest is Alexander Berkman, who for a long while was Emma Goldman’s sweetie.

apology accepted

Jeez I could have gotten this over days ago. C. has been kind enough to hear and accept my apology and did not consider my considerable display of ill temper enough to make her hate me…

Don’t know what I did to deserve this life.

Shipped off 1450 words to mOm this morning after an 850 word day, thank you very much.

The brilliant sunshine is so wonderful. I just popped the back door to let the late afternoon sun and air flush the house.

Paul took me to lunch after we took EIGHT BAGS of mostly clothes (I did a quick peruse to ensure it’s stuff he can lose) to Value Village. Next time per his specific request they’ll go to the Sally Ann at the bottom of the hill. I can’t talk him out of it, that’s fine, he’s entitled to his preferences.

better today

Although my Lumosity scores tanked. I mean really, do I have a brain at all. Wordle in 5. 281 words yesterday on TB.

I don’t spend much time talking about it on my blog, but my despair and anger over the reproductive health situation in the US is immense, and I don’t really think the republicans WANT to tank the US birth rate even more, but I think that’s what’s going to happen. It all smacks of religiosity and panic and eugenics, and I find it horrifying. Anyway, so many young women instead of using birth control will be using a gun instead – self-reports of women under 30 going for bilateral salpingectomies are skyrocketing on social media. Women are sharing the names of US doctors who will perform this no questions asked without consulting spouses…. Can’t force birth on a woman in that situation, unless you’re kidnapping her and implanting the fetuses of wealthy men, which I suppose is the next step for these fucking assholes. I’m long out of the game, but I ask you to spare a thought for the women of reproductive age in the family who are feeling all this socio-legal grinding on the pillars of their lives with more dread than I.

I don’t spend much time talking about it on my blog, but I’m still getting the occasional kudo on AO3 even though I locked down my account so it’s only available to members.

Had a really productive and helpful conversation on the phone with Keith yesterday.

I am going to drink some coffee and try to get a little more cheerful and fold my laundry.

Apparently Putin’s so desperate for actionable intelligence that he’s authorized hacking into Ukrainian coffee shops’ security cameras.  Eye…. roll….

recycling

I read on reddit that a great way to deal with paper if you don’t want to shred it (Jeff has a shredder but I have A LOT OF PAPER TO SHRED) is to turn it into papier mâché and yup, that works – I experimented with 20 year old tax returns yesterday.

Happy Easter for those who celebrate! Reread (or read, lol) my King Jesus homily if you’re in the mood.

Continue reading recycling

pleasant times

Lovely indoor walk with Paul yesterday at Lougheed. He seems very beaten down and oppressed by his illness but cheered up for the walk. It always cheers folks up to eat, so we got some lo mai gai, which was particularly fine in comparison with previous outings, and there was a lone har gaw in there because they were out of enough lo mai gai to fulfil my order, and the hot and sour soup was as good as I ever remember it being there. We went to Cobb’s but I didn’t buy treats, just spongy crusty white bread which is my kryptonite for stuff I’m s’posed to lay off for my liver.

Continue reading pleasant times