the lawn

Jeff worked very hard and did the mowing; I policed up/weed whipped the buttercups and weeds closer to the edge of the property except for the ones under the dogwood tree and the ones that were covering A FUCKING WASP NEST which reduced my joy at working outdoors about as low as it goes. We both got covered in grit and buttercup juice and I still need to do the very front that’s got tall grass coming up through the cedar hedge.

I couldn’t even move for about ten minutes afterwards and every time I raised my arms they shook which made tea drinking interesting. As Jeff remarks, we really should exercise more.

One more week until Peggy’s next mini house filk.

22970 words on Totally Boned.

 

Suzanne supports writers

Well she sure supported me yesterday. She was cleaning and I was writing my ass off. Normally we hang out a bit, but I was electrically charged or summat.

Current word count stands at 22164; total word count for yesterday is a hair shy of 3000 words. As far as I can tell there’s no drop off in quality. I guess mOm, who’s been reading it as it flies off the keyboard into a pixellated state, would have to weigh in on that.

The lads in the story are on an airplane headed home. I am already up to 250 words today.

Paul’s gone to the US for Father’s Day. There are memes to cover this so just imagine me staring unblinking at you.

big day

1600 words on Totally Boned. This includes TWO gunfights, a government coverup, a Burn Notice-worthy use of a chokepoint in a hotel, Our Hero #1 barfing all over the crime scene after realizing that he’s not used to shooting without ear protection, the fixer providing everyone with unregistered handguns AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT as part of the government coverup and our lads getting to the airport and getting away clean.

 

or do they???? mOm is ready for more, but I think I shall rest for a while. I sure wasn’t expecting to write like a fiend today.

total now stands at 20863 words

the people vs. the press

Despite the overwhelming hatred and bigotry being expressed in the daily papers in the UK against trans people, one in four Britons is reporting that they know a trans person and the majority of people surveyed don’t agree with their rights and health care being stripped away. I could bang on about the basic decency of people but I won’t. I’ll just say that it’s possible people are more resistant to Nazi propaganda than you often give them credit for.

A woman in my neighbourhood published a photo of a bus creep on NextDoor (which is candidly the last fucking place on earth I’d expect to see such a thing) and it didn’t take very long before two men bounced on her hard to tell her she ought not to publicly shame people. Ie women shouldn’t complain about men. Then a bunch of other people came out to flail on the misogynists including other men.

I JUST FUCKING LOVE HOW WHITE MEN ENJOY TELLING WOMEN OF COLOUR TO CALL THE COPS ON A MAN OF COLOUR. Because that was the reaction of the naysayers WHY DINCHA CALL THE COPS.

“OH YOU SHOULDN’T DO THAT TO THE POOR MAN, EXPOSE HIM TO PUBLIC SHAME… NOPE you should call the cops.” WHY should a woman of colour (Arabic 1st and last name, for all I know she’s as pink as me but I’m not betting on it) call the RCMP on a Chinese guy? If she’s a Syrian immigrant (spitballing here) what the fuck would lead anyone to believe that she trusts the cops over local direct action? Given how the local cops’ (VPD, RCMP) treat men having mental health issues in public, one might refrain from calling them for assistance when one feels threatened just so one doesn’t have a death on one’s conscience. The VPD shot dead a man having mental health issues at Clarke and Broadway and the RCMP are no better, I assure you. I mean, it’s never been proven, but I’ve seen lots of evidence that the RCMP on the Island shot an Indigenous man who was having mental health issues and WAS UNARMED in the head WHILE HE WAS KNEELING. THAT COP IS STILL SERVING.

Fuckin’ wild I’m telling you. SURE, call the cops. You’ll never regret it.

toasted sesame seed bagel, smoked wild-caught salmon, roasted garlic cream cheese, capers and red onion for brekky… Jeff’s response was a literal ‘nom nom nom’

I made coffee but Jeff’s just going to ignore that part. We have to end eating pizza before it ends Jeff’s end.

19300 words. I chug, I chug, I chug along.

I’m going to listen to Eminence Front (the Who) ON BLAST

Ghislaine Maxwell says she needs lenience in sentencing because she had a terrible childhood. NOPE

Zahn McLarnon in Dark Winds is AMAZING and the writing is 100%

I saw Ryker yesterday when I helped Katie with a Costco shop and he was crabby and nobody was wearing a mask who was under 50. FML. Katie doesn’t wear a mask in public because Ryker goes snake when she does.

 

mellow day

worked on a fan fic, 300 words (the ‘copaganda special deputy’ story. THERE WILL BE GUNPLAY)

Totally Boned is up to 18753 words. I am really having problems visualizing how to communicate Brad wanting to make a big declarative speech and then just… not doing it because he realizes it’s self-indulgent and tacky. I mean when I write improbable characters I pull out the stops.

Off to do a grocery shop later this morning.

There was a really long and interesting thread on twitter this morning about how autistics communicate and I’ll be sitting with it for a while.

Yesterday I slept a lot and felt really weird and had balance problems. Let’s see how today is.

the fates

Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, dressed in brocades and obviously modelled on Slavic women by Pavel Ignatyev.

I am still experiencing the joy of Cindy providing lunch and Peggy providing the venue for a mini filk yesterday. My bucket’s full. I’m writing in dribs and drabs, gaming on my usual puzzle games, and enjoying the weather.

I was supposed to see Alex today but his mama’s got a cold. In other news, I now know someone who’s been diagnosed with Long Covid and they won’t be the last.

Buster bit Jeff after he got home

What the hell, cat. You showed every sign of missing him terribly while he was gone. Not a hard bite but a visible one. He has since been fine.

He went to stand at the back door twenty minutes before Jeff arrived, so much so that I opened the door.

What a cat.

We watched the new Downton movie. FIVE COUPLES were formed or reunited over the course of the last twenty minutes, it was quite a demonstration of the reunification of the couple that Zizek goes on about, and there was a gay couple in there too. Fellowes the showrunner scriptwriter really likes happy endings. And someone dies, but it’s er okay.

I love you my dearest friend

phonetic transliteration of "I love you my dearest friend" in hieroglypics
I love you my dearest friend

Literally, the above is a phonetic translation of the title of this blog post.

Many loads of laundry; conversations with me mum, bingeing four episodes of Our Flag Means Death, an expensive delivery meal, working on songs and practicing, and getting Buster to purr when I told him daddy’s coming home today.

Peggy’s invited me and Cindy for lunch on Saturday. I wasted no time replying in the affirmative.

s’all good. No writing though, after the last long blort I’m in plotting and planning mode.

mini trip

As a responsible adult I called Katie yesterday morning to let her know that Jeff and I were heading up the sea-to-sky highway to check out a provincial campground and park north of Squamish, to be back in the afternoon; I’d call her when we were home. In other words we drove all the way from Kikayt (New Westminster) southeast of K’emk’emeláy (‘place of maple trees’, aka Vancouver) all the way to Skwxwú7mesh Temíxw (Squamish Territory). The number seven or the special question mark is a glottal stop.

I had one job.

Only one job.

That was to tell Jeff when to turn off for Alice Lake. Could I? Did I? No. I didn’t see the sign until we were on it. Jeff turned around. There was a sign saying turnoff in one kilometre and we didn’t see the turn off. Going back north again from Squamish we saw TWO SIGNS for Alice Lake and finally managed the turn off. The campground itself is lovely, heavily treed and with two little beaches. Anyway, I marked the damned turnoff on the map with the kilometres and paid for Jeff’s gas (I hardly ever pay for gas, so I was due anyway).

It was a gorgeous trip, however brief, and if someone ever transcribed our joint running commentary from the dash cam we’d probably have to flee the province.

Jeff got us McDonald’s afterwards – I got my fries with no salt and they’re surprisingly good.

And I wrote a thousand words yesterday, 17865 is the count.

It was a good day.

Jeff got me up for a rainbow

It was time for me to take my meds anyway, what a good brother. Then I look on r/vancouver and twitter and you’d be amazed by how many people took pictures of it!

This says: it is a duty to help refugees.

The CNT says of its membership, (from wikipedia): “We make no distinction at the time of admission, we require only that you are a worker, student or unemployed. The only people who cannot join are those belonging to repressive organisations (police, military, security guards), employers or other exploiters”.

The CNT is one of the longest surviving anarchist confederations in the world, and still has a place in the politics of Spain and the upholding of the rights of the worker, as well as serving as a reminder that people are drawn to those of moral and ethical consistency.